


The Lost Boys

by electrolyte



Category: NCT
Genre: M/M, NCT Dream - Freeform, nct - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-08-19 08:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8198524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrolyte/pseuds/electrolyte
Summary: Mark was seven when he first stepped foot into NCT Children's Society. He was eleven when he realised that his parents were never coming back. He was fourteen when he was the only one who didn't get to be brought back to a new home. He was sixteen when he met the most annoying boy he's ever met - Lee Donghyuck.





	1. Foreword

Mark has seen many of the kids in the orphanage come and go. He's been there for _eight_ years, for God's sake. By the time he was the oldest of the boys in the orphanage, he knew he was never gonna find a new home. But he's convinced himself that he doesn't really need to, because the orphanage was his _home_ \- even though he has a 10pm curfew and Henry, the home's "caretaker", was _pretty dumb_. He likes to think he's fine. He's happy. He doesn't need a new family or new friends. (His old friends got adopted pretty quick, and they never kept in touch so he's pretty much a loner.) Besides, he overhead Henry speaking to the director that four boys from another orphanage were to be transferred here, so he wasn't gonna be alone anymore. In fact, he was _never_ gonna be alone.


	2. Chapter One

_“Mommy, where are we?” The young boy looked up at his mother with wide, questioning eyes. His stubby fingers gripping her slender ones a little tighter than before. The two were standing in front of a big grey building just on the corner of a quiet street._

_The young woman doesn’t reply her son. Instead she lifts her free hand towards a small red button beside the large mahogany door and hastily presses it. She goes down to her knees and turns to face her son. With her vision blurred from the tears that were threatening to fall, she reluctantly lets go of her son’s hand and cups his chubby face._

_“Mommy?” The boy stares at his mother in confusion. “Why are you sad?”_

_“I’m not sad, honey. Be a good boy from now on okay, Minhyung-ie? Don’t sleep too late and remember to brush your teeth before bed.” The woman bites her lips in attempt to stop the ugly sobs from escaping._

_The boy is even more confused. His mother only calls him Minhyung when he’s done something bad. Was he in trouble? What did he do wrong? He remembered being a good boy that day so why was his mother calling him that?_

_“Mommy did Minhyung-ie do something bad? Mommy please tell -“_

_“Stay here and don’t come after mommy okay? Stay here.” The boy is cut off by his mother releasing his face from her hands and getting up again. The boy began to panic when he sees her press the doorbell one more time before running down the short flight of steps, without taking his hand. She speeds down the sidewalk and dashes across the road._

_“Mommy where are you going?!” He waddles down the steps but his short legs misses the last one, falling onto his hands and knees. But he doesn't care about the sting on his palms and the scrapes on his kneecaps. Why was his mommy leaving him?_

_“Mommy!” He shouts._

_The woman doesn't even turn back when she screams at him not to follow her. The child gets up and runs towards the road with tears flowing down his round cheeks. “Momm- AH!”_

_A car speeds past him before he could place his tiny feet on the road. He jumps back in surprise and scans the opposite street for his mother. But there was no sign of her. She was gone. She left him. She left poor little Minhyung all alone in an unfamiliar place with swollen eyes and bleeding knees._

_“Mommy?”_

_-_

Mark awakens with a start. He lets out a dreadful sigh and wipes the beads of sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand. The same dream _(or should he call it a nightmare?)_ was haunting him in his sleep again. It has been for the past eight years, constantly reminding him how his mother left him all alone at this _place_. 

He rubs his face with his still-stubby hands as he forces himself to get out of bed. His eyes finally focus and he looks around the said _place_. NCT Children’s Society. What the ‘NCT’ stood for, he didn’t know. He didn’t even bother finding out for the past eight years anyway. 

All he knew was that although he first hated being there, he soon grew to love it like his home. In fact it was his only home now. He couldn't remember where his old one was, but he remembered living in a small, rundown apartment room with his mother. 

He remembered waking up to her small, but filled with love, breakfast meals and spending almost the entire day playing with dirty, some even broken, toys. But he was happy. Or used to be, until he was left here. He didn’t know why his mother chose to abandon him then. He thought they were happy. However Mark had buried those thoughts now, along with the memories he had before coming into the orphanage.

He was honestly old enough now to get out and find out who his real mother was and why she left him, but he couldn't be bothered about it. If she really loved him, she would've came back for him. But no. Mark had waited. He waited four agonising years by the steps of the orphanage where he scraped his knees. 

He sat there every day for four years hoping to see his mother run across the street towards him, apologising for leaving him there and then bringing him back to their home where he would play with his little blue bricks. 

But that ended four years ago, when he was eleven and he finally realised that his mother was never coming back for him. So he accepted it, albeit it being so painful, and lived his life in the orphanage as if he was born there.

Besides, living in the orphanage wasn’t so bad. Yes he was the only orphan left there and the curfew was way too early for his liking, but he had grown to love it there. The people were nice and food was always abundant. He sometimes gave Henry, his caretaker, a hand at the daycare that the orphanage ran on the second floor. 

Also Henry was like an older brother to him. After all, he was the one who found him crying on that sidewalk eight years ago.

Speaking of Henry, Mark practically leaped out of bed when he heard the familiar shuffling of feet outside his room door. He covered two of his fluffy pillows with the duvet and quickly rolled under his bed before the door creaked open, light spilling abundantly into the room.

“Mark? You up yet, bro?” Henry calls out, walking towards the bed. Mark tries not to laugh as he prepares for his daily prank on the poor caretaker. It’s funny because he’s been scaring him like that for almost three years now, yet Henry still falls into his trap every single time without fail.

Once the pair of feet stops next to his head, he waits a few seconds before reaching out to grab Henry by the ankles, receiving a rather satisfying and girly squeal from him. Mark laughs with his mouth hung open as he crawls out from under the bed. He almost falls back onto the ground in laughter when he sees Henry glued onto the wall behind him, hands clutching his chest in surprise.

“Oh my God Mark why do you keep doing that?!”

“Because you fall for it every. single. time. And also I get to see _that!”_ Mark doubles over in laughter once more, raising his index finger towards Henry’s face, emphasising his point. 

Henry’s face is bright red and it’s contorted into an expression that can’t be explained in words. But hell, all Mark knew was that it was worth using as blackmail.

“Ugh whatever. Just hurry wash up and come down for breakfast. I made waffles.” Henry rolls his eyes and playfully shoves Mark aside before making his way out. Mark giggles into his palm once more and skips to the bathroom, ridding himself of his blue pinstripe pyjamas along the way.

So that was how Mark usually starts his day at the orphanage. He picks on Henry in the morning, showers and downs his breakfast with Henry and the other caretakers. Afterwards he would watch some lame ass cartoon before the daycare kids come in at 10am. 

_“Why do you call them kids when you’re literally a kid yourself?” Henry would question him and he would laugh before saying that being a ‘kid’ at fifteen years old is different from the six year olds that can’t even spell ‘orange’._

He usually spends half his day playing with the kids, but sometimes he takes a self-proclaimed day off to either stay cooped up in his room playing video games or take a walk around town alone looking at clothes he couldn’t afford or finding new places he’s never been to. Though he’d be back at the orphanage by 3pm for a late lunch before waiting for his tutors to arrive.

Mark has been homeschooled at the orphanage, not wanting to go to a normal public school. He didn’t really want to be in a new environment or make new friends. They’d leave him anyway, just like his mother did. Even his old friends at the orphanage got adopted pretty quick, and they never kept in contact afterwards. Mark’s _only_ friend was probably Henry, and only Henry.

By the time his tutoring sessions ended, it would be about 8pm and Mark’s bottom would be sore from sitting and studying for hours, only taking toilet breaks and half an hour off for dinner time. He would only have two hours left to do whatever he pleased before he had to be sent off to bed. 

_“Who even sleeps as early as 10pm, honestly?” Mark would often complain, but he still abode by the rule anyways._

He’d spend the last two hours of his day depending on his mood, but most of the time he’ll either grab some supper with Henry or watch some dance videos in the computer lab. Afterwards he’d wash up and head to bed, not forgetting to brush his teeth. 

He’d wake up the following day with the same schedule, only switching things around on weekends when there are no daycare kids and his tutors don’t come in if they aren’t needed.

To an outsider, Mark’s daily life at the orphanage may seem boring and mundane but to him, it’s like a routine that he never really got bored of. It made him happy, the orphanage made him happy and he couldn’t imagine leaving this place. He didn’t know how the other orphans could bear to leave. This place was like Neverland to put it bluntly. He’d say Henry was like the Peter Pan but he thought, _nah he’s too dumb._

Of course there were days where Mark wished that he wasn’t all alone, doing the same thing all day long. There were times where he’d silently cry in his bed at 2am in the morning, thinking about what he would make of his life once he turned eighteen and would have to leave the orphanage. Sometimes thoughts about his mother would slip into his mind for brief moments before he’d shake them off and force himself to sleep.

But the next morning, he’d wake up pretending that never happened and carried on with his day like usual, hiding under his bed to scare Henry to start it off.

However, on one October morning, Mark wakes up feeling _different_. No it wasn’t because he forgot to close his windows last night and now his feet were freezing. He felt as though something was coming. Not literally, but he thinks that his life at the orphanage was about to change.

He shrugs these feelings aside, telling himself, _you’re not some shaman who can tell the future pfft please,_ before preparing himself for the day as per normal.

-

It was about 7pm when Mark started to feel restless. He didn’t feel like solving math equations anymore. The tingling feeling from that morning was still bothering him no matter how hard he tried to shrug it off. He excuses himself from his tutor and leaves the room, dragging his feet down the hallway towards the washroom. However he turns left at the end of the hallway instead of the right where the washroom was, a cheeky grin set on his lips.

Mark stood outside Henry’s office, preparing to barge in and scare the poor man, but he hesitates when he hears that he wasn’t alone in his office. Pressing his little ears to the brown mahogany door, he listens.

_“Have you prepared everything for the new boys coming this Friday?”_  

Mark recognises the voice to be Kim Heechul, the director of the orphanage. The phrase _new boys_ peaked his interest, so he presses the side of his face further onto the door, hoping to hear more.

_“Yes of course, hyung!”_ Mark hears Henry reply with much enthusiasm.

_“Good, good. I want everything to be perfect. We haven’t had any new ones in a while. Does Lil’ Marco know about this yet?”_ Mark scoffs at the nickname the director often uses on him. He’s not _that_ little anymore, please.

_“No, not yet, hyung. I’ll tell him later before bed, but I’m sure he’ll be excited to make some new friends!”_

_“Ah alright. I hope he doesn’t get too attached though, you know how he gets.”_ Mark frowns a little at this. What did Heechul mean by ‘how he gets’? He didn’t cause any trouble. The last time he did something considerably bad, _(Mark didn't even think what he did was bad, honestly)_ was when one of his best friends in the orphanage, Doyoung, was taken away from him. 

He was so upset that he filled the walls of the whole orphanage with large streaks of his colourful permanent markers as payback. It took almost a week to clean it all up, considering how huge the building was, and Mark was banned from chocolates for a month. 

But he was only nine at that time, still a young and emotional child, he would reason. He didn’t take abandonment very well, but now that he was _mature_ enough he didn’t cause that much trouble anymore. Just the occasional little pranks on Henry of course.

But other than that, Mark was definitely excited like what Henry predicted. He hadn’t made any new friends here for almost a year now. His mood enlightens as he pulls away from the door and skips down the hallway back to his tutoring room. Things were gonna change, he _knew_ that feeling he woke up with meant something.

-

When the long awaited Friday came around, Mark literally jumped out of bed and ran out of his room without washing up. He bumped into Henry in the hallway, effectively scaring him, but it wasn’t on purpose this time.

“Whoa whoa someone’s jumpy this morning. This is different.” You could say that Henry was pretty surprised that Mark was wide awake and not grabbing his ankles from under the bed that morning. “Excited to meet the new boys?”

“YES, ARE THEY HERE ALREADY?” Mark bounces, attempting to push past Henry to get downstairs. However Henry grabs his arm before he could do so and ruffles his light brown locks as he laughs at the little man’s adrenaline rush.

“Calm down Lil’ Marco. They won’t be here till after lunch.” Mark pouts at this. He couldn’t wait till after lunch, that was about four hours away! “Now go get clean, you stink bro. I made bacon and eggs today.”

Henry pats the boy’s cheeks before pushing him towards his bedroom door. Mark reluctantly lets himself be pushed, dragging his feet in the process. He sighs and goes to wash up, but eventually puts a smile on his face in anticipation.

-

It was 1.30pm when Mark heard the front door open and the chatter of a few people. He quickly downs the last of lunch and hastily rinses his plate in the sink. Dashing towards the front door, Mark sees the director speaking with Taeyeon, another caretaker, with four young boys by his side.

“Please bring them to their rooms while I settle the paperwork, Taeyeon-ah.” 

The young woman nods in acknowledgement as the director disappears into the hallway to his office.

“Come boys, follow me.” Taeyeon motions them towards the stairs but is surprised by Mark’s appearance in front of her. “Oh, Mark? What are -“

“It’s okay I can bring them, noona!” Mark cuts her off and gives her a sweet smile, knowing all too well that she would give way to his charms. “Their rooms are right next to mine right?”

Taeyeon just nods at the boy as if she was being hypnotised. She turns to the four boys and tells them to follow Mark as she drags herself to the kitchen for some leftover lunch.

Once she was gone, Mark gives the four confused boys a teasing smile. He holds the tallest boy by his left elbow and pulls him up the stairs to the third floor where the rooms were. Almost instantly the smaller three boys follow them like ducks.

Mark brings the four young boys to his room and closes the door behind him. The four stand in a line in front of him looking utterly confused.

“Is this our room?” The tallest boy questions as he whips his head around, scanning the room, his fluffy brown hair bouncing with his movements.

“Nah, this is _my_ room! I’m Mark by the way, and I’ve been here for eight years!” Mark laughs as he introduces himself. 

“But aren’t you supposed to bring us to our rooms?” A timid voice comes from one of the smaller boys _(who kind of resembles a little baby chick, Mark realises)._ “Why are we in your room?”

“Because,” Mark drags the word with mischief. “We are gonna have some fun first! Now you guys know my name, we can’t have much fun if you guys aren’t gonna talk.”

The tallest boy gives a wide, but pretty smile. Eyes sparkling, he introduces himself as Na Jaemin, the oldest of the four. Mark also finds out that he’s only two years younger than himself.

The _little baby chick_ then whispers a Park Jisung with a tiny grin on his face, introducing himself as the youngest - five years younger than Mark. Jisung nudges the last two boys whose hands were still tightly clasped together, innocent eyes still staring up at Mark.

Mark lifts a brow as they don’t speak but continue staring up at him like he was some sort of alien.

“Uhm?”

“That’s Ren Jun and Chen Le,” Jaemin steps up to introduce the two timid boys. “They’re both Chinese so they’re practically glued at the hip. Can’t separate these two for shit. They understand some Korean but they can’t really speak it. They’re a year older than Jisung.”

Mark’s lips form an ‘O’ as he nods understandingly. “So where are you guys from?”

“Well, we initially came from different backgrounds,” Jaemin explains. “But we all came from The Sunshine Orphanage in Incheon. Someone told us we were moved here because there wasn’t enough space there anymore, but we know the real reason why they transferred us.”

Mark lift his brow once more as if to ask what the reason was. Jaemin giggles into his arm as his grin widens. A part of Mark got a little creeped out at that but the other part of him was curious.

“They got sick of our pranks. Chen Le here almost gave the whole house food poisoning because he dropped some slime into the buffet.”

Mark whips his head towards the small Chinese boy who looked as if he couldn’t hurt a fly. But looks could be deceiving so Mark gave a seemingly impressed look and faces the four boys.

“Well then. Since you’re passionate about pranks, I’m sure you guys would fit right in.”

 


	3. Chapter Two

One year later.

 

Mark leans on familiar brown mahogany doors, a smirk set on his lips in satisfaction as he listens to the commotion in the director’s office. (He _really_ needs to do something about this eavesdropping habit).

“We’re very sorry for changing our minds, Heechul-ssi. We hope we didn’t cause you any inconvenience.” The sixteen year old boy’s smirk widens as he hears this. He quickly pushes himself off the door and skips a few steps backward into the hallway. 

Wiping the smug grin off his face and replacing it with an innocent blank look, he slowly walks forward, pretending as though he was just walking by when the doors swing open.

He halts when he makes eye contact with Heechul and gives a slight bow. Heechul is sporting a stinky eye back at him but acknowledges the boy anyway. He is about to leave when the director calls him back.

“Meet me in my office in ten minutes, Mark. Just you.”

“Yes sir~” Mark playfully sings in response, knowing all too well why he was called. Heechul scowls a little at the boy before turning towards a rather young couple and escorting them to the exit. 

Once the adults were gone, Mark bursts into fits of laughter. He hears an all-too-familiar giggle from behind him and turns on his heels to see Jaemin standing by the door of Heechul’s office. Said boy was sporting a short, blue babydoll dress complete with the _ugliest pink_ ballerina flats Mark has ever seen. But in all honesty Jaemin still looked good in that get up. Too bad that narrow-minded young couple thought that dresses were only meant for little girls.

“Well hello there, Miss. Haven’t seen you around here before.” Mark teases the younger boy.

Jaemin rolls his large doe eyes and smacks the other boy in the arm. But his face breaks into a large smile once again anyway.

“Shut it, Marco. I look fabulous and you can’t deny it.” The pretty boy attempts to flip his _rather short_ hair in Mark’s face and playfully struts past him towards his room. Mark clutches his stomach from laughing too much, however still sniggering as he followed after Jaemin.

“Hey wait up Jaeminnie Mouse!”

-

Propped in a _ridiculously uncomfortable_ grey leather armchair, Mark examines the room he was sitting in. He takes in the shelves and cabinets filled with files and documents arranged on the left side of the room. His eyes then flitter to the right side, where little drawings clearly done by kids were plastered all over the cork board. 

His attention is caught by one very familiar art work pinned to the lower left corner of the board. The white paper was painted with nothing but strokes of grey and black. He motions to take a closer look but he hears the door open and close behind him, so he forces his butt back onto that nasty armchair. He is welcomed by the director leaning against the desk in right in front of him.

“So how did Jaemin’s adoption go?” Mark asked innocently, but he already knew the answer, so he bites back the urge to smirk once again.

There is a short silence before Heechul speaks up, sighing.

“How long are you going to keep this up, Mark?” The man asks, slight disappointment laced within his words.

“What are you talking about, Mr. Kim?”

“You know very well what I’m talking about, Mark Lee!” Heechul bursts, standing up straight and towering over the young boy seated in front of him. “Why do you keep messing with the boys’ opportunities in finding a new family? Are you perhaps jealous of them, young man?”

Oh, that was not the case. Mark was most definitely not jealous of the boys. No no. He liked to believe that he was doing a good deed. He was protecting his friends. Besides, he had perfectly good reasons for coming in between all those adoptions.

Like the first time he actually intervened on one was because of his two Chinese gems, Ren Jun and Chen Le. It was only three months after he first met the other four boys, and he could safely say that they were getting along really well. Even his daily schedule had changed, and he was actually looking forward to getting out of bed every morning.

He doesn’t even need to execute his pranks alone anymore. Why do that when you’ve got four others to help you out? But damn was Mark amazed by how well they worked together despite their personality differences.

When it came down to the planning, Jaemin and Mark himself were the masterminds. They would come up with the most time consuming yet satisfying set ups ever. Like that one time they stuck hundreds - no, _thousands_ of post it notes all over the orphanage building. Even on the rooftops and the _private_ rooms. It took them a week to execute, and more than a week to clean up.

Jaemin was someone who was definitely on Mark’s frequency, except the younger _may_ come off as a little on the feminine side. But you can’t deny that boy could fool anyone with his big, sparkling eyes, slim nose and bright smile.

The boy was loud, cunning and very playful. He is most definitely not afraid to speak his mind, sort of resembling a little diva in Mark’s view.

Meanwhile Jisung was a master at persuasion. Being the youngest, he was thought to be the most innocent. The one who would cause the least of trouble. Maybe even be against their large scaled pranks.

But boy were they wrong.

With a cute face like that, he was often used as bait to distract the adults as they wreaked havoc behind their backs. However it didn't just stop there. Jisung was quiet, but the words that come out of his mouth could burn a building. (In which they _almost_ did, but that’s a story for another time).

From the past year that Mark has spent with the four boys, he absolutely cannot overlook the bond between the two Chinese boys. Like Jaemin mentioned when they met, Ren Jun and Chen Le really were glued at the hip. Wherever one went, the other would follow. To put it bluntly - they were _inseparable_.

Which brings us back to the reason why Mark came between an adoption case for the first time - Huang Ren Jun and Zhong Chen Le should never be separated.

_Chen Le was crying. No, he was practically wailing. This was the loudest Mark had ever heard from Chen Le. (If the boy was a singer, he’d definitely nail those high notes.)_

_Mark didn’t even know why he was crying so hard. He was playing a game with Jisung when the boy suddenly burst into the room alone (which left Mark quite confused because Ren Jun was always with him), red faced and eyes brimming with tears. Even after an hour when Jaemin returned from doing errands, Chen Le was still sobbing loudly into Jisung’s shoulder._

_“Chen Le what’s wrong?” Mark asked wearily as he gently pat the boy’s head. “Where’s Ren Jun?”_

_Upon hearing his gege’s name, Chen Le wailed even louder, burying his face into one of Mark’s Finding Nemo pillows. Mark was beyond shocked. He didn’t know how to deal with crying boys, let alone Chen Le. It was usually Ren Jun who calmed him down when the younger would sob over the smallest things._

_Mark looked over to Jaemin who was sitting on the bed, raising his brows as if to ask if he knew where Ren Jun was. The latter just shrugged._

_“Chen Le?” Jisung tried coaxing the boy this time, poking his chubby cheeks in hopes of getting a response. The boy lifts his head and rubs his very swollen eyes, hiccuping as he tried to speak._

_“Jun-ge… Leave… Le-Le.” His Korean was broken but it was enough for the other three boys to understand what he was trying to say._

_-_

The boys later found out through more eavesdropping that a young couple had applied for an adoption a week before and innocent boy Ren Jun had been shortlisted.

And poor little Chen Le was the first to know.

Hence with the good in his heart, Mark had come up with a plan to make sure that his two Chinese boys will not be forced apart. The young couple who wanted to adopt Ren Jun didn’t know a single word of Mandarin, so Mark offered to help “translate” whatever was said during the meeting.

_“Since when did you learn Mandarin, Mark?” Henry had asked him before the meeting._

_“Oh, I have my ways, hyung.” Poor naive little Henry believed the young boy._

Of course Mark had felt a little bad towards the young couple, seeing them storm off red-faced when Mark told the husband that what Ren Jun said in Mandarin was “ _I wonder how you’ve survived living with that (his wife) for the past few years._ ”

The couple was so shocked that something like that came out of a thirteen year old. Meanwhile the two boys remained oblivious and kept their innocent faces on as the director profusely apologised to the couple.

The boys got an earful from Heechul that night but Mark didn’t care. Especially not when Chen Le was all smiles since then, hugging his ge ge to sleep with the biggest grin on his face. But most of all, looking at these boys, Mark has never felt such a strong sense of belonging. And he was going to do everything to make sure he didn’t lose them.

_(He liked to think he was doing it for the boys, because they looked so happy at the orphanage surrounded by each other. But deep down inside, he was selfish. He just didn’t want to end up alone again.)_

_-_

Back to the present, Mark closes the door behind him. Heechul’s warnings of “not doing these things ever again or you will suffer the consequences” ringing in his ears. But was Mark going to listen to him? Hell no.

Entering  ~~his~~ their now shared room, in which the boys managed to convince Heechul to join three rooms into one so they could all sleep together, he is welcomed by the four of them huddled around the small table behind the couch.

“What are you guys up to?”

“Hyung!” A _now blond_ Jisung pops his head out upon hearing Mark’s arrival. (Mark bleached the youngest’s hair because the man that once planned to adopt the baby chick wanted a _pure_ boy. He hated piercings, dyed hair, tattoos and all that jazz.) “Look what Chen Le stole from Henry hyung!”

Chen Le mumbled something in Mandarin before pouting, and everyone glanced at Ren Jun waiting for a response. The two Chinese boys had been working on their Korean the past year and Ren Jun’s understanding in the language had become significantly better, leaving him to translate almost everything that Chen Le has difficulty in saying.

“He said he didn't _steal_ them, he found them lying in the hallway.”

Mark made his way through the boys and stares at the two blue files sitting idly on the table. Each file was labelled with a picture and a name on the cover.  _Lee_ _Donghyuck and Lee Jeno._

“What are these supposed to be?” Mark questions, but he kind of already knew what they were. He’s seen these files before. And way too often at that.

“Apparently these two are coming in tomorrow!” Jaemin answers him a little too excitedly. “Don’t know why no one told us earlier though.”

“Maybe they didn't want us to know?” Ren Jun shrugs.

“Eh whatever! But I call dibs on this one! He’s cute!” Jaemin points at the file nearest to him, labelled ‘Lee Jeno’ with a picture of a boy who seemed to be around his age. Said _Lee Jeno_ was blessed with good features and the most _unnecessary_ eye smile. The boys obviously knew why Jaemin called dibs.

“Of course you’d call dibs on any guy with a face like that, hyung.” Jisung retorts, rolling his eyes. The other boys giggle, seemingly excited to _recruit_ more people into their small team.

-

The five boys wake up to a commotion coming from downstairs, hearing unfamiliar voices. They look at each other with sleep still in their eyes, Jisung almost falling off his bed.

Confusion filled the air as they scratched at the mess on their heads in attempt to remember any forgotten appointments that morning.

“OH MY GOD THE NEW BOYS!” Jaemin was the first to shoot out of his bed. He grabs his towel and dashes to the bathroom, obviously wanting to make a good impression on _someone_.

His loud, voice brings the other boys back to reality. Their eyes widening in realisation that yes, the two new boys were there already, and they didn’t manage to prepare anything. 

This sends the whole room in a frenzy, the boys running and panicking in all directions trying to get ready for the day, occasionally banging on the bathroom door screaming at Jaemin to hurry up.

And when Jaemin finally emerges from the bathroom looking _way too dressed up_ and smelling as though he took a swim in perfume, the boys hear Heechul calling them from downstairs. They didn’t even have time to fake a gag at Jaemin trying too hard as they rushed to get ready.

Jaemin checks himself out one last time in the mirror before strutting his way out the door.

-

When Mark finally meets Donghyuck and Jeno, he was in awe at how good looking they were at their age, with them being just a year younger than Mark himself. Jeno looked as dreamy as Jaemin would have said, but Mark wasn't going into details. Besides, Jaemin already _called dibs_.

His eyes travelled to the other boy - Donghyuck who was busy discussing some things with Heechul. He couldn't really make out what they were saying for he was distracted. 

Distracted by the glow of Donghyuck’s slightly tanned skin. How his sleepy eyes made him look like an adorable puppy. How his fluffy brown hair made him want to just reach his hand out and run his fingers through the soft locks.

“What are you looking at?” Mark is pulled out of his trance when he hears himself being called out. He blushes a little when he realised he’s been caught.

“I uh… I..” _Damn it, why am I stuttering all of a sudden?_

“He thinks you’re cute.” Mark’s cheeks turn an even deeper red. He turns to a smirking Chen Le and gives him a glare. The boy just sticks his little tongue out in response. That little rascal.

Donghyuck laughs. _(And sweet Jesus why does it sound so heavenly in Mark’s ears?)_

“Why of course. I am _kwiyomi_ , and boy you are _ugly._ ” Donghyuck sings teasingly, complete with a ridiculous attempt of swag-looking hand gestures.

The whole room erupts in fits of laughter. Mark freezes. He has never felt so embarrassed and attacked. No one makes fun of him. No one. He’s the oldest there, he should be respected! He feels something bubbling up in his chest as he tries to spit out a comeback.

“W-well ye.. yeah! Well you’re… You’re so d-dark it’s weird!” Mark stutters out a well, _lame_ , response in attempt to shade him but everyone just laughs even harder. The other boys have never seen Mark _that_ red before.

Meanwhile the director sighs and shakes his head, wondering what he’s done in his past life to have to deal with such strange children. He gets up and leaves the room, but not before telling the boys to not _make a mess_.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Donghyuck scoffs. Mark doesn’t say anything, not wanting to embarrass himself again. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Alright alright.” Henry breaks up the little feud between them, but it was evident that he himself was trying not to laugh as well. “Go settle in your rooms and come down for breakfast.”

The boys scramble to welcome Donghyuck and Jeno to the house and bring them to their large shared room. Especially an eager Jaemin who grabs a shy but otherwise smiling Jeno by his hand, pulling him up the stairs to the rooms.

“Come Jeno hyung! I saved you the bottom bunk!” Jaemin excitedly _squeals_ as he brings Jeno to the room, ignoring Jisung’s protest of _hey I’m the one who sleeps there!_

However Mark doesn’t move from his spot. Too busy trying to reflect on the bad decisions in his life. He wants to just crawl into a hole and rot. Or maybe kick Donghyuck into a hole instead and let him rot.

He feels a light flick on his forehead and he looks up to see Donghyuck staring at him with those sleepy eyes of his.

“Aw don’t look so sad, bub. I was just kidding.” Donghyuck attempts to coax the boy, but he laughs again. “You’re not _that_ ugly.”

He flicks Mark’s forehead again and walks away before the latter could say anything. Mark grumbles lowly and rubs his reddening forehead.

It was there and then that Mark Lee had decided - that Lee Donghyuck was the epitome of _annoying_. He didn’t know how he was going to live with him from then on. 

Screw his ~~beautiful~~ tanned skin and ~~melodious~~ laughter.  Lee Donghyuck was the very bane of his existence.

_But why was his heart beating a little quicker than usual?_


	4. Chapter Three

Donghyuck has never been so amused in the past fifteen years. Much less from a stuttering boy with weirdly shaped eyebrows. He first thought that Mark Lee was going to be a cocky little nerd who would keep to himself, but when Donghyuck caught him staring, his reaction was rather _fascinating_.

For some reason it made Donghyuck feel a little bubbly inside, and all he wanted to do was laugh. The older boy would blush till the tips of his ears, mouth gaping like a fish as he looked around like a lost child. 

Donghyuck found it quite endearing, and he couldn’t help but want to constantly tease him so he could always get that reaction from him.

Before he knew it, Donghyuck was hooked. And all he wanted to do was to see Mark Lee in all his embarrassed glory.

-

Settling himself down on the bed next to his cousin, Donghyuck observes Jeno who is seated with his legs crossed, picking at his fingers. He smiles and pokes the boy at his forehead.

“So how do you feel about this place so far?” It’s only been over a week since the two settled in the orphanage. Donghyuck was already beginning to love it, he wished he could say the same for his cousin though. Knowing that Jeno was an introvert who would take a while getting comfortable in new places, he just hoped the boy was coping well.

“It’s alright, I guess. Everyone’s been really nice and welcoming.” Jeno smiles at his cousin, his eyes curved into familiar crescents. Donghyuck laughs and ruffles the boy’s hair.

“By everyone you mean the pretty boy right?” Donghyuck teases. He laughs even harder when he sees a tinge of pink dusting Jeno’s cheeks.

“It’s nothing! Jaemin is really nice. and he’s been helping me a lot.”

“Eyy, but I didn’t even say his name~” Jeno turns an even deeper shade of red, biting at his lips to keep himself from smiling like an idiot. Embarrassed, he shoves his cousin in the shoulder and he falls off the bed laughing. 

However Donghyuck grabs him by his shirt and drags him down onto the floor with him. He pokes him in his sides, and soon enough Jeno joins his cousin on the floor in fits of giggles.

Their jaws hurt from all that laughing, but the two cousins simply lay there, observing the glow in the dark stickers on the sky blue ceiling. It’s been quite a while since the two have had a genuine laugh. They’re so young, yet they found it a little hard to enjoy life ever since the _accident._

Donghyuck glances at his cousin from the corner of his eye and smiles. ‘ _I really hope you’re happy Jeno-yah.’_

_-_

_You could say that their lives were perfect. They weren’t filthy rich but they lived comfortably enough to afford simple luxuries. Their parents were always busy, but they never fail to find the time to spend with their children, and that particular weekend, the two families were off to Busan for a short trip._

_All buckled up in their SUV, Jeno and his parents drive off to pick up the other_ _Lee's_ _. Jeno couldn’t stop his smile from reaching his ears. He fidgets in his seat as they pull up to the front porch of his cousin’s home. The boy was visibly excited to spend the weekend with his only cousin and his family._

_They were impeccably close, almost glued at the hip. Of course it was only normal of them to be so - they were each other’s only family. Other than their own parents of course._

_Jeno couldn’t imagine a life without his cousin. Donghyuck can be mean and snarky, yes, but he was mostly so to protect him from the bullies in school._

_The two families were just driving up the highway, the boys enthusiastically discussing with their parents about their upcoming performance for the school’s festival._

_The mothers chuckle in the backseat as they watch their sons bicker over who should get which singing parts, while the two dads in the front converse about “manlier” things like baseball and barbecue._

_“You can play your guitar too, Jeno-yah.” His mother suggests as she smoothens out her son’s shirt lovingly. “Maybe add a little of those dance moves you’ve been practicing in your room.”_

_“Pfft, Jeno you’ve been dancing?” Donghyuck snickers. He’s never pegged his cousin to be the dancing type. He always kept to himself and read books all day._

_“Yes, and he seems to be quite good at it too.” Jeno’s mother brags, ignoring Jeno’s complaints of his mom ‘exposing him’._

_Donghyuck cups his hands to his mouth and tries not to laugh when he imagines his cousin in a baggy sweatpants and snapback, or worse - a pink tutu. “Are you sure he’s good, auntie?”_

_“I’m sure I dance better than you, you big dumb!” Jeno smacks his cousin’s head and soon enough the two boys are having one of their little playful fights again, the adults just watching in amusement._

_Donghyuck was about to ask if they could have ice cream, when he felt it. The sudden jerk in the SUV and the warm arms of his mother enveloping him. He watches as his aunt does the same to Jeno as shards of glass fly behind her. He squeezes his eyes shut as he tries to drown out the screams. He wasn’t religious but he prayed in his mind that it was all just a bad dream._

_It all happened so fast, and before he knew it, he was half laying on the ground, his mother's arms still around him, lifeless. He tries to get up to find his father but his body was hurting so bad that all he could do was stay down. He turns his head and sees Jeno in the same position as he is, just inches away from his scratched up arms. Despite the ringing in his ears, Donghyuck could tell that his cousin was crying as he tried to wake his own mother up. He’s never heard him sob so painfully before._

_And for the first time in years, Donghyuck closes his eyes and allowed the tears to fall freely._

_-_

“What cha doing over there, Lil Marco?” Donghyuck peeks over the older boy’s shoulder, attempting to find out what he’s been so engrossed in writing for the past few minutes.

“Stop calling me that, I’m older than you!” Mark exclaims as he tries to block out the annoying brat from looking at his ‘work’. “And it’s _hyung_ to you, brat.”

“Okay, _hyung~_ ” Donghyuck coos. “What are you working on?”

Mark buries his face deeper into his desk in attempt to hide the blush forming at his cheeks. The way Donghyuck called him _hyung_ just made him feel so strange. Donghyuck sees this and merely chuckles.

The two were in the daycare, surrounded by little kids half their age, after being asked to help out with the crafts. Clearly they weren’t helping much by sitting in a corner and bickering.

Persistent, Donghyuck taps Mark on the shoulder and as expected, the boy looks the other way. He quickly grabs his paper from the desk before the older turns back around.

“Hey! Give that back!” Mark shouts a little when sees the paper in Donghyuck’s hands. He tries to snatch it back but the latter was quick. He steps onto the little chair and avoids Mark’s waving arms as he tries to read his illegible handwriting.

“ _Jaeminnie’s birthday mission,_ ooh what is this?” Before he could continue reading, the paper was snatched out of his hands. He glances down at Mark as he hastily folds the paper and stuffs it into his back pocket.

“It’s nothing. None of your business, actually.”

“Aw come on it’s not nothing!” Donghyuck hops down from the chair in front of Mark. His face only centimetres from the older’s. Startled by the sudden closeness, Mark takes a step back, mouth gaping like a Magikarp. “It’s Jaemin’s birthday coming up, we should plan the party together.”

“It’s not exactly a party!” Mark hisses, shuffling his feet backwards because _why in the world is he getting closer to me?!_

“Then what is it?” Donghyuck presses on as he steps closer to Mark, slightly smirking when the boy turns red as he backs up towards the wall.

“I-It’s … Uh… It’s,” Marks is stuttering and reacting the way the younger wants him to. He steps up close enough so that Mark is literally glued to the blue wall behind him, eyes almost bulging out of its sockets as they watch the boy get closer and closer.

_‘Holy shit does he not understand the concept of personal space?! Oh but his eyes are so pretty and his skin is so - What the hell, Mark there are children present!’_ He mentally smacks himself in the face trying to get rid of those thoughts. 

He’s is also too distracted to feel a hand slipping into his back pocket, pulling out the messily folded paper from earlier.

“Aha!” Mark is broken out of his trance and blinks twice to see his little plan grasped in the hands of the younger. He huffs and blows a strand of hair out of his face trying to calm himself down. He gives up on trying to snatch the paper back from Donghyuck.

“So you’re doing a big birthday prank eh?” Donghyuck nods as he continues reading, fairly surprised that the older wasn’t trying to yank the paper out of his hands. He sees him nod from the corner of his eye as if to agree with what he just said. “Well since it’s in two days and we obviously don’t have a lot of time, let’s get started right now!”

“Wha-“ Mark is interrupted by a warm hand curled around his wrist, pulling him towards the door. He smiles apologetically when he makes eye contact with Henry on his way out. The caretaker just smiles and goes back to cutting out shapes on coloured paper.

“Come on, we can go get the other boys to help too!” Donghyuck tugs on Mark’s arm, dragging him across the hallway.

“Wait what do you mean _we_?”

Donghyuck stops in his tracks and whips his head around. He gives Mark a look. “We’re friends aren’t we?”

Mark doesn’t answer him. 

“And friends help each other out, no?”

Mark blinks confusedly. He stares at Donghyuck, wide-eyed and slowly nods. The boy breaks into a smile and grabs him by the arm again. 

“Great! Then let’s get started!”

Mark lets himself be dragged by the boy he likes to call an _insufferable brat_. He smiles a little to himself.

_Friends eh?_ _Maybe Donghyuck can’t be that bad._

-

Mark was wrong when he said that Donghyuck wasn’t that bad. It was quite the opposite. He really was _that_ bad.

By bad he didn’t mean that he was terrible at doing things. Oh no, he was doing fine at following instructions. But that  _insufferable brat_ boy was just so goddamn annoying it frustrated him.

And by annoying, he meant that he just could not stop poking fun at him. Even when there were literally four other boys that he could disturb with his unnecessary jokes, Donghyuck still chose to tickle at Mark’s chin as if he was a dog.

(If Jaemin was there, he wouldn’t hear the end of his teasing. But then again even if the pretty boy was there, he’d be too busy doing the same thing to Jeno. Psh.)

The others simply watch in amusement as the two boys bicker like a married couple. They’ve never seen Mark get so riled up to that extent, yet they did nothing to stop it. Besides, you have to admit, seeing someone be able to get such reactions out of the eldest was _pretty interesting._

“Uhm, so why do we have so much pink stuff?” Jeno awkwardly asks, staring at the different shades of pink thingamajigs set in front of him. There were pink balloons, pink pillows, pink streamers, and anything else pink that you could name. There was even a huge tin of bright pink paint.

“Jaemin must _really_ like pink huh?”

The boys chuckle at Jeno’s naiveness and shake their heads.

“Actually, it’s quite the opposite.” Jisung explains. “He absolutely loathes the colour. Says it offends his ‘manliness’.”

“Tsk, what manliness?” Chen Le rolls his eyes as he huffs, Ren Jun effectively translating what the boy said. “He’s the girliest one out of all of us here.”

Mark nods in agreement, ignoring Ren Jun’s _Oh I see you’re finally done flirting._ “One time a bee flew into our room, and Jesus I have never heard such a high pitched scream. I almost went deaf.”

“You sure _you_ weren’t the scared one, bub?” Mark just ignored Donghyuck’s teasing, clearly too tired of the boy’s shit. Donghyuck pouts at his lack of response. 

“Aw come on, Marco, smile for me”. He digs his index fingers on the corners of Mark’s lips and pulls them up into a rather forced smile. Mark reddens at the contact but he quickly swats the boy’s hands away and turns to his friends.

Picking up as much pink as he could with his little arms, Mark motions to the rest. The others quickly follow like the obedient children that they are, also grabbing as many things as they could.

“Come on guys, let’s go set up!” Mark skips out the door and makes his way down the hall towards a room that the rest have never really seen before. Nonetheless, they trail behind him excitedly, hoping that Jaemin wouldn’t be done with his piano practice so soon.

-

Standing in the centre of the room, Jeno takes a good look at their hard work put into the pinkest room he has ever seen. He gapes a little, impressed at how they were able to pull it off in such a short time.

The walls were covered in bright pink paint, a massive pink fabric backdrop hung from a pole on one of the walls. Pasted on it was a relatively huge picture of Jaemin sleeping with his mouth hung open. Jeno sees a bit of drool on the corner of his lips and giggles. _Cute,_ he thinks.

The rest of the room was simply very straight forward - it was a pink fantasy. Or rather _hell_ for the upcoming birthday boy. Pink balloons covered almost seventy percent of the floor, save for the chair in front of the picture and the pillows thrown in the corner. A little pink table was set up as well for the cake and other sweets, but _boy_ the room was so pink it could be a Victoria Secret store.

Though it was somewhat a prank, Jeno couldn’t help but feel a little impressed and touched by how thoughtful they were at going to such an extent to celebrate Jaemin’s birthday.

“So what’s the plan?” He asks. The six boys huddle in a circle as Mark explains the whole sequence, the young ones nodding at almost every word.

“Jaemin’s gonna hate it so much that he’ll love it.” Chen Le croaks out in broken Korean, but everyone still understood and agreed nonetheless.

-

The night before his own birthday, Jaemin couldn’t sleep. It was twenty minutes to midnight and he was still wide awake. Usually he’d be knocked out the moment his head hits his pillows but he’s been rolling around for about an hour.

No, it wasn’t because his birthday was in twenty minutes. Definitely not. He couldn’t sleep because of his stupid thoughts. Memories that shouldn’t be bugging his mind, especially since it’s been _years_.

Frustrated, he rips off his blanket and sits up. Looking around the room, he pouts when he sees that everyone was dead asleep. (Mark and Donghyuck were laying _so damn close_ to each other that Jaemin couldn’t help but take a picture for future blackmail.)

Looking down from his top bunk, he looks at his eye candy sleeping so peacefully on the bottom bunk. He doesn’t want to wake the boy up but he was just so desperate to do something to distract his mind.

“Psst, Jeno.” Jaemin whispers loud enough for the boy to hear, but soft enough to not waken the others. “Hey wake up.”

Jeno shifts in his sleep but doesn’t awaken. Impatient, Jaemin flings one of his small Rilakkuma plushies at Jeno’s chest, avoiding his _very nice_ face.

Jeno jerks at the sudden feeling and cracks his eyes open. Squinting, he cocks his head up to see Jaemin waving cutely down at him from the top bunk.

“What was that for?” He asks sleepily, rubbing his eyes to get his vision to focus.

“I can’t sleep. Wanna head to the roof with me?” Jaemin tried keeping it hush as he climbed down from his top bunk. Jeno really wanted to go back to sleep but he nods in agreement anyways.

Jaemin grabs two jackets from the rack as Jeno puts on his shoes. Jaemin does the same and the pair throw on their jackets, slipping out the door on their tip toes.

Jeno brings an extra blanket just in case.

-

Settling themselves down on the concrete ground, the two boys hug their knees as the cold wind blew. Shivering a little, Jaemin sneakily took the chance to huddle a little closer by Jeno’s side. Jeno didn’t give it much thought, though. He just continued eyeing the gloomy, starless sky.

“So…” Jaemin broke the awkward silence. “My birthday is tomorrow.”

Jeno shifts his head to face Jaemin and fakes a slightly shocked face, pretending as though he didn’t know about the latter’s special day. He flashes a little smile that sent butterflies to Jaemin’s stomach before glancing at his wrist watch.

“Which is in about fifteen minutes?” Jaemin nods excitedly, slightly flushing from the closeness. “Looks like I’ll be the first to wish you then!”

Jaemin smiles. As much as he first found Jeno extremely physically attractive, he felt comfort in his presence. Different from the comfort he feels with the rest of the boys. Call it cheesy but he feels as though he’s known Jeno for years - like a soulmate.

So when Jeno asks him why he was tossing and turning, unable to sleep that night, Jaemin tells him everything. The story of how his mother died giving birth to him. How his father blamed him for everything and treated him like shit. And last but not least, how he was kicked out of his own home on his twelfth birthday for coming out to his father.

Jeno was pretty much shocked at how much the younger had to go through at that age. Jaemin was always so bubbly and loud that anyone would immediately think that he was a happy-go-lucky kid.

Glancing down at the sleeping boy on his shoulder, Jeno smiles for the millionth time that night. It was already three minutes past midnight, so he wraps the blanket around him a little tighter and cranes his head to place a short kiss on his forehead.

“Happy birthday, Jaemin-ah.”


	5. Chapter Four

When Jaemin cracked his eyes open that morning, he didn’t expect to be tied to a chair facing a pink wall. He strains his neck, _because damn whoever tied him up was really good at knots,_ and takes in his surroundings. He grimaces when he realises that the whole room was goddamn pink.

_Goddamn_ pink was an understatement, Jaemin thinks. The pink was so overwhelming he felt his nonexistent manliness draining out of his body just by the sitting in that room.

And just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, he looked down to see himself dressed in the most ridiculous and not to mention _hideous_ pink jumpsuit.

Whoever changed him out of his pyjamas, he didn’t want to know.

Jaemin rolls his eyes however, because he knew why he was in that situation. And it was so blatantly obvious which idiots were behind it. Who else would have that disgusting picture of him sleeping?

But deep inside, he was thankful of course. His friends were complete airheads and annoying as fuck but they were really thoughtful for doing these things. (Even though tying him to a chair in a pink ass room was the _worst_ idea ever, honestly.)

Jaemin jumps and nearly screams when a familiar hand grabs him by the shoulder and spins him around. He jumps a little once more when he is greeted by six boys he knew all too well, popping _pink_ confetti in his pretty face. 

“SURPRISE!!”

Jaemin simply threw his head back in laughter as his  _stupid_ friends sing him a birthday song in Korean, Mandarin _and_ English, their voices breaking here and there from puberty. _Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous._

“I hate you guys.” He shakes his head, but the huge smile on his face never faltered in the slightest bit. “You’re all idiots.”

“Nah you totally love us, hyung.” Ren Jun retorts.

“Unfortunately.” Jaemin sighs and as if on cue, the six boys roll their eyes. “Now get me out of these ropes, please?”

“Nuh uh,” Chen Le replies with a playful grin. He mumbles out a mixture of broken Korean, fluent Mandarin and some English, the whole room comically whipping their heads towards Ren Jun who says that _Jaemin is going to be sitting there till this is over and be forced to do everything we want._

Jaemin screams internally because _what the fuck_ he can’t even move his arms by a centimetre. What if his nose started to itch? Or worse, there was something on his face and he couldn’t wipe it off to make sure he actually looked _good_ on his own birthday.

“Ya’ll are gonna get it from me after this.” Jaemin growls through gritted teeth, but his pretty face just made him look like an angry kitten. The boys just laugh.

“You gotta blow the candles first, hyung!” Renjun pushes through the small crowd with an unsurprisingly pink cake. Jaemin rolls his eyes but breaks into a large grin anyways.

He shuts his eyes and makes a wish. 

Opening his eyes, he is faced with six of the most idiotic grins plastered on faces he would never get sick of seeing. (Though he would never openly admit it to them.)

Blowing out the fifteen candles, Jaemin smiles widely. Even when he feels someone slap a handful of whipped cream on his cheeks, the smile never left his face, because all he ever needed in his life were these six dumb boys, no matter how annoying they were. (read: Lee Donghyuck).

And not to forget that one boy whom he can bravely call as someone _special._

_-_

Shuffling his hands through countless polaroids, Jaemin picks out his favourite ones. He sticks them onto the wall next to his bed and takes a good look. He rakes his eyes past his solo polaroid, pink cream smothered all over his face. 

He stops at the one in the centre, where the boys forced Jeno to kiss his cheek. He flushes once more remembering how pink they were afterwards. (He swore the pink in the room couldn’t beat the pink on their faces.)

Lastly, he lingers a little longer at their group selfie, faces all squashed up to fit into the small frame of the polaroid. He giggles at the amount of struggle they went through just to take a simple group photo.

He loves these boys so much, he could never imagine a life without them. So he grabs a sharpie and scribbles down the wish he made.

_I wish we would always be like this._

_-_

Donghyuck stares at the clock ticking ever so slowly on the wall. Visibly bored, he rests his chin on his palm and looks around the ‘classroom’. (Though he couldn't exactly call it that because it was just a normal room that _looks_ like a classroom, and there were literally only three people in there.)

He stops at Mark who is _obediently_ writing down notes. He leans a little closer, somewhat admiring the concentration on his face - the little wrinkles formed between his eyebrows.

“Hey Marco.” He whispers in said boy’s ears, slightly blowing some warm air. Mark simply hums in response, eyes still glued to his notebook. Donghyuck pouts at the lack of response as usual.

“Wanna skip the rest of tutoring and head out?” He constantly pokes the boy’s cheeks, but Mark still doesn’t budge. “Helloooooo?”

“What for?” Mark mumbles as he scribbles down more math equations he probably won’t ever use in the future. “And how are we gonna even leave this room and not come back? We still have three hours till our next break.”

Donghyuck crooks an eyebrow and leans back in his chair with his arms crossed.

“We go to the bathroom, duh?”

“Please, what makes you think he’ll let us go _together_?” Mark scoffs, finally looking up from his damn book. He points at their math tutor, Mr. Cho, with his pen and as if on cue, the tutor turns around from the whiteboard and faces the two boys with a slight frown on his face.

Donghyuck quickly settles back at his desk and pretends to go back to “doing work”. He tears a small part of his notebook and scribbles something down. When he was sure that Mr. Cho wasn’t looking, he flings the crumpled paper at Mark’s desk.

_Jesus Christ this boy doesn’t know when to stop._ Mark scowls in his mind, opening up the crumpled paper ball and reading it.

 

_I have an idea._

_I don’t wanna know ._._

_Aw, come on bub give me a chance ;)_

_Ugh you’re insufferable. What is it?_

_Just watch, and wait for my cue <3_

 

Mark raises a brow as he reads the last message. He turns towards the younger boy to see him smirking, a bag of white powder in his hands. Mark’s eyes widen.

“How in the hell do you have that?!”

“Shhh,” Donghyuck shushes him, pressing a finger to his lips as if to accentuate his point. “I have my ways.”

Mark watches Donghyuck slowly get up from his seat and tip toe towards the door. He motions him to follow, so Mark quickly shoves his things under the desk and slides out of his seat quietly.

“On the count of three, we run out, kay bub?”

“Wait wha-“

“One… Two…” Donghyuck cuts him off. And on the count of three, Donghyuck flings the bag of powder at Mr. Cho’s feet like a grenade. The bag bursts and immediately, white powder fills the entire room. The boys hear their tutor gasping in shock but they don’t care.

Mark froze at the sight of it, slightly shocked as well. Donghyuck rolls his eyes and grabs him by the arm, pulling him out of the classroom. Mr. Cho calls out for them but they ignore him and continue running down the hallway, hand clasped tightly together.

Dashing past numerous care takers who look at them weirdly (they don’t do anything to stop them because, _kids)_ Mark and Donghyuck somehow made it through the front door. They continue to skip a few blocks down for good measure.

Catching their breaths at the traffic light, their cheeks flush when they realise their fingers were still tightly interlaced. Quickly pulling his hand away, Mark looks around the neighbourhood.

He never really went out much ever since he met the other four boys. Even if he did, he only hung out at the shopping streets just five minutes away. He was never exactly _comfortable_ with going too far out, away from the orphanage.

Poor kid wasn’t that fond of the outside world.

“So where are we headed?” Mark questions the younger when they cross the road towards a street he’s never been to.

“Just follow me, bub. You’ll find out when we get there. It’s a pretty long walk though.”

Mark huffs, blowing his bangs out of his face, and grudgingly trails behind the younger.

-

Mark was about to whine regarding the ache in his feet (because what the hell they’ve been walking for almost half and hour already) when Donghyuck turns right through an alley. At the end, he sees a field-like clearing. There were huge tents and it was bustling with people, almost like a carnival. Mark gapes as he scans the numerous stalls.

“This is the Gajok State Fair.” Donghyuck explains as they walk through rows of stalls offering scrumptious food, mini games, activities and the like. “Jeno and I always came here with our parents every month. It’s like our family hangout tradition.”

Mark could almost hear the sadness in the younger boy’s tone, but decides against mentioning anything. He just nods as he looks around the place, seeing different people of different ages enjoy the company of their loved ones.

“But we’re not here to buy anything of course, we’re broke ass kids.” Donghyuck suddenly jokes as if he wasn’t reminiscing bittersweet memories just moments ago. “Come on slowpoke, we’re almost there.”

The two boys weave their way through the crowd and somehow or rather, they end up in a park by a small lake. Mark follows Donghyuck further down the park, the number of people surrounding them decreasing by the minute. He stops when they’re pretty far away from civilisation and there’s a little dock by the lake.

They plant their butts down at the edge of the dock, feet dangling just centimetres above the murky water. Silence lingers between them for a few minutes before Mark speaks up.

“Why’d you take me here, or rather, _out_ in general?”

“You seemed pretty spaced out these days, that’s _so_ unlike you.” Donghyuck starts. “You haven’t made a single prank in a week!”

“You don’t even know what’s _like_ me, we’ve only known each other over a month.” Mark grumbles under his breath, but Donghyuck hears him anyways.

“Then help me _know you_ , Marco.”

Mark wants to laugh because Donghyuck actually being serious with him was extremely strange to see. But he sees that the younger boy wasn’t kidding so he takes a deep breath and let’s it all out.

He didn’t expect to do it, much less to _the annoying brat_ _Lee_ _Donghyuck,_ but he tells him everything that has been bothering him for days.

“… It’s just, ever since Jaemin’s birthday, I realise how quickly we’re all getting older. And sooner or later, we’re all going to leave the orphanage and go our separate ways, and I’m just scared, man.” Mark rambles. “What’s worse is I’ll be the first to leave and I don’t know what I’m going to do then.”

The older boy buries his face in his palms in despair, feeling his whole body shake in fear of what’s to come of the future. It’s the first time he’s voiced out about something like that to anyone, and he was quite surprised because the last person he thought he would tell was Donghyuck.

The latter has never seen the former look so scared and broken. Rubbing the older’s back in attempt to comfort him, Donghyuck couldn’t help but relate to that feeling. He never really made any conscious thoughts about the future, always deciding to just live in the present.

“Hey don’t get so worked up over it now, bub. You still got time.” Donghyuck says softly, hoping his words would at least cheer the older boy up because he wouldn’t know how to deal with an over emotional boy. “A year and a half is more than enough to think about what you wanna do later on. For now just live in the moment, man.”

Mark sniffs before managing to squeeze out a slight laugh at Donghyuck’s attempt to lighten the mood with his fake American accent.

“Please don’t ever speak like that again, it’s gross.”

“Shut up, you’re just jealous cause I’m _swaggier_ than you~” Donghyuck coos, pinching the older boy’s cheeks.

“Ugh,” Mark groans and slaps Donghyuck’s hands away from his precious cheeks. “The only good thing about leaving the orphanage first is that I don’t need to deal with you any longer.”

“Hey come on now, Marco. Can't we talk about more fun things?” Donghyuck pouts. “We’re here to relax, not stress out over the future kay!”

“Oh sure thing,” Mark retorts sarcastically, rolling his eyes in the process. “Let’s start with why on earth you _still_ insist on sleeping on _my_ bed when you have your own?!”

“Eyy you like it, don’t deny it!” Donghyuck teases ignoring Mark’s constant complains, the slight pink tinge on his cheeks giving way. “Yours is way more comfortable and way bigger than my pathetic excuse of a bed. Why do _you_ get such special treatment, anyway?”

“What special treatment, you idiot.” Mark lightly flicks him in the forehead. (Was this payback for the first time they met?) “I’ve been at the orphanage for over eight years already, our room used to be _my_ room first. Besides, Henry always manages to get me what I want, somehow.”

Donghyuck laughs, and Mark watches how his eyes crinkle into pretty half moons. “Yeah that hyung isn’t exactly the brightest crayon in the box, is he?”

“But he has a good heart. He’s like a brother to me.” Mark smiles, remembering all the good memories he’s had with the caretaker.

Soon enough, the two boys continue blabbing about anything and everything about their lives. They grow closer and learn more about each other as the sun goes down. The evening wind rustling the leaves of the trees as they witness a beautiful bond begin to blossom.

-

It’s been almost six months ever since Donghyuck and Jeno came in, and you could say that the friendship between the seven boys were _unbreakable._

They’ve been very _good_ boys of course, helping to run errands, punctually attending tutoring and of course creating some havoc once in a while.

(By havoc meaning Mark attempting to make breakfast one day, and effectively waking up the whole house with the smell of burning eggs.)

Nothing much has changed - other than Mark and Donghyuck suddenly becoming the best of friends ever since they came back from the lake that day. It became sort of their hangout spot now, and they never fail to drop by the dock or the fair every time either of them was feeling low. 

When the new year came round and Mark was feeling anxious about the future again, Donghyuck immediately dragged him out of the orphanage for a distraction again. The older felt eternally grateful for that.

They may be on better terms now, but Donghyuck still never failed to annoy the crap out of him, always managing to rile him up and effectively get the best of reactions. (aka a blushing and stuttering Mark Lee.)

Of course, who could forget Jaemin and Jeno being all obvious and disgusting. The boys wanted to gag every time the two are shamelessly flirting and smiling like idiots around each other.

(One time Chen Le caught the two fast asleep on the rooftop before dinner, limbs all tangled up. The Chinese boy snapped a quick picture before waking them up with a splash of nice cold water.)

As disgusting as they were however, Donghyuck was genuinely happy at how much brighter his cousin smiles when he is around the pretty boy. Jeno of course repays his cousin with more teasing every time he catches him returning to the orphanage in the late evenings with a certain _Mark Lee._

Donghyuck would always laugh it off and say that they’re just close friends who help each other out.

Things were _almost_ perfect, the boys were happy,  and laughter constantly filled the walls of NCT Children’s Society. Until one February afternoon, that a knock came at the front door while the boys were messing around in the play room. Standing by the hallway near the entrance, the boys watch as Heechul greets a young couple.

Mark’s eyes widen as he realises the situation. He turns towards Jaemin who shares the same expression. There hasn’t been a single adoption offer in months, he thought they were all too late in their teens to be adopted by now. 

Donghyuck and Jeno just look at each other in confusion.

“What’s going on, guys?” The tanner boy asks, eyeing the three adults who were making their way towards them. The boys who knew what was about to happen space out a little, clearly not expecting something like  _that_  to be happening so suddenly.

“Hey boys!” Heechul begins. His eyes travel towards Jeno, and Jaemin visibly pales, shakily whispering a small _no_ under his breath.

“Jeno, dear, can you please come with me to my office?”


	6. Chapter Five

_December 2015_

“IT’S CHRISTMAS!!!” 

The boys, no, the whole orphanage wakes up on the morning of December 25th to the high pitched screams of an overly excited Zhong Chen Le. Though the other six groan in despair for being woken up at such an ungodly timing, they were quite excited nonetheless. 

It was their first Christmas together as seven, and the orphanage was having a small internal dinner party that day. (Heechul also allowed the boys to stay out till eleven in the evening, can you feel their happiness?!)

Literally jumping out of his bed, Chen Le bounces to the relatively huge, but otherwise fake, Christmas tree planted in the middle of their shared room. The boys wanted to exchange gifts between just the seven of them so they decided to have a tree for themselves as well.

“Guys wake up!” Chen Le squeals as he grabs one of his presents from under the tree and shook it, trying to figure out what was in it. “It’s time to open the presents!”

“Le Le, it’s seven thirty in the morning.” Ren Jun groans, rubbing his face with his palms. “It’s not even boxing day but can’t this wait at least till lunch time?”

Chen Le pouts and whispers a quiet  _fine_ , but tears open one of his presents anyway. Ren Jun rolls his eyes and sighs,  _so much for boxing day tomorrow._  He gets up from his bed and drags himself to where Chen Le was marvelling over his gift.

“Le Le…”

“Waaa!” Chen Le cuts the boy off mid speech, clearly  _very_  satisfied with his gift from the other Chinese boy. “I can’t believe you really got me this!”

Ren Jun had managed to gift Chen Le a brown stuffed bunny that he had been eyeing, with some pocket money he has been earning from helping around the orphanage. (He’d do anything to make sure the younger boy’s cute smile was never wiped off his face, really.)

Cradling the soft toy in one arm, Chen Le curls his other arm around Ren Jun’s neck, pulling him into a hug. “Thank you, ge ge!”

“You’re welcome, Le Le.” The older boy laughs heartily, ignoring the fake vomitting noises coming from the other boys. Clearly wide awake, the other boys gave up trying to go back to sleep, and join the two Chinese boys at the Christmas tree, tearing open their small but meaningful gifts from one another.

Jaemin tried his very best not to beat Donghyuck up when he opened the latter’s present and a short pink dress was sitting innocently in the box.

-

After the short Christmas dinner at the orphanage, the seven boys got permission to head down town to see the Christmas lights. There was even going to be a small parade on the streets. It was pretty much their first time going out altogether as seven, and  _boy_  were they thrilled.

The parade was nothing but wonderful - bright Christmas lights filled the posts, huge colourful floats roamed the streets, and of course rows and rows of stalls stood offering numerous sweet Christmas treats.

The boys stumbled through the crowd as they obnoxiously sang along to the Christmas carols blasting through loud speakers. They didn’t give a crap about the biting cold, clearly a little too high on sugar. Even Jisung who never fancied singing so much was belting out  _All I Want For Christmas Is You,_ voice cracking slightly at the high notes.

It was past nine in the evening when the boys started to feel the ache in their feet. The fair lasted a whole stretch worth almost an hour of walking, Mark swore he couldn’t see the end of it.

By the time they’ve walked enough to last them a week’s worth of exercise, the boys somehow ended up on a pathway by a very familiar looking lake. The murky water was starting to freeze up and the poles by the little dock that Mark and Donghyuck frequented was decorated with fairy lights.

As if reading each other’s minds, the two made brief eye contact before cheeky grins were pulled at their lips.

“Come on guys, let’s settle down at the dock!” Mark called out to the tired boys. “I heard there’s gonna be the first snow fall tonight!”

The boys groaned but dragged themselves towards the lakeside anyway.

Plopping their freezing butts down on the cold hardwood, the seven boys shivered at the dropping temperature. They huddled a little closer to each other, attempting to get some warmth.

The tips of their noses were redder than Rudolph’s, and Donghyuck simply smiles when Jaemin sneezes suddenly, and Jeno wraps his own wool scarf around the younger boy.

“Aw, they’re so cute.” Mark coos when he witnesses the same thing. Donghyuck laughs a little and turns to the older boy, pouting. 

“I’m getting really cold too, Marco. What if I fall sick?”

“Well too bad, dumb ass.” Mark scoffs. “Who told you not to wear gloves?”

Donghyuck sulks even deeper, upset that he didn’t get the response he was pining for. Frowning, he stares at his boot-clad feet dangling above the near-frozen water, not bothering to join in on the others’ conversation about  _hover boards._

He doesn’t miss the familiar gloved hand that intertwines with his freezing ones, however. He smiles to himself when that same hand pulls his into warm pockets.

“Oh look!” Chen Le suddenly stands up and points to the dark sky. “Snow!”

The other boys whip their heads up towards the sky and mimic the Chinese boy’s expression of amazement, watching dots of white fall onto the tips of each other’s reddening noses. Their mouths widen in awe as the snow thickens and begin to pile up in random places.

“We clearly need to get out more.” Jaemin laughs when he realises how  _too_ amazed they were by mere snow. The rest of them giggle and nod in agreement.

“Let’s do this  _every_  year, then!” Ren Jun suggests, eyes sparkling. “This place could be like our spot!”

Everyone cheers in agreement, momentarily forgetting about the cold and simply just basked in each other’s presence.

Mark turns to Donghyuck and for the millionth time that day, they make eye contact and smile genuinely.  _Yeah, our spot._

_I don’t ever want things to change._

-

_Present Day_

The five remaining boys sat on the couch, watching Mark pace continuously around the playroom. He’s been doing that for the past few minutes, little wrinkles between his eyebrows and a noticeable frown upon his face.

Jaemin sighs and plays with his lithe fingers, slightly shaking with nervousness.

“I have a plan.” Mark suddenly stops pacing around and speaks up. “We need to stop this before the meeting ends!”

The other boys nod in agreement, except one. Mark hastily grabs a stack of plain papers from the shelf and a few markers, settling down on the round table in front of him. The others ignore Donghyuck’s confused  _what_  and huddle around Mark.

“Okay first of all, we have no time to do anything big. So this is gonna be as simple as it gets.” The oldest boy trails off, beginning to go into details.

Still confused, Donghyuck gets up from the couch and peeks over their shoulders in attempt to figure out what was going on. He didn’t have a clue what Mark was even blabbing on about, and what were they even making a plan for?

Slipping his hand between Jisung and Ren Jun, Donghyuck picks the paper between two fingers and quickly pulls it out. The boys stop their conversation abruptly and stare at the tanner male.

“ _Stop Jeno’s adoption -_  What is this?” Donghyuck questions immediately when he began to read the paper.

“It is what it seems to be. We’re trying to make sure your cousin doesn’t leave this place.” Mark shrugs, snatching the paper back. Donghyuck puts in no effort to hold onto the paper tighter. “You in or what?”

Speechless, Donghyuck scoffs in shock.

“Why in the  _fuck_  are you guys even trying to stop it?”

Mark stops writing and the five of them turn to stare at Donghyuck once more, eyes slightly widening at the latter’s tone.

“He belongs here, man. He belongs with us. With  _you._ He’s happy here.  _We’re_  happy here.” Mark explains with his brow raised.  _Why is he getting so worked up?_

“This is an  _orphanage_ , guys. We’re  _orphans_. We’re  _supposed_  to be adopted. It’s our second chance at finding a home.” Donghyuck presses on, tone getting deeper and more agitated by the second.

“We don’t need a second home,” Mark stands up from his spot on the floor, beginning to get a little pissed off at the younger’s attitude. “This orphanage is our home and we’re all each other’s family. No one wants to leave this place, not one of us.”

The four younger boys by the round table nod profusely, agreeing with every word that the older had said.

“This is ridiculous!” Donghyuck steps up, rubbing his face in frustration. “What do  _you_  know what we all want? What Jeno wants? As much as I  _love_  being here and I don’t want to be separated from my cousin, he deserves a loving family. A  _real_ one, and -“

“What do you mean a  _real_ one, huh?” Mark cuts him off, frowning. His hands were balled into fists and his veins were starting to show. Mark was starting to get really angry. “Are we not a real family to you? Do you want to leave this place?”

The other four boys didn’t know what to do. Mark and Donghyuck quarrelled often, yes, but those past times were merely for fun and games, over trivial things. But this was different. They’ve never seen the two so angry, as if they were about to bite each other’s heads off for real.

“That’s not even what I meant!” Donghyuck defends himself. “I just think that it’s ridiculous of you to try to stop an adoption! And it’s not even the first time, I’m sure.”

Ignoring Chen Le’s mumbles of  _this is our ninth time actually,_ Mark fights back. He was  _this_ close to bursting.

“And  _why_  do you think it’s ridiculous? I just want us all to always be together, I don’t want things to  _change_.”

Looking back and forth between Mark and the wide eyes of the other four boys, Donghyuck stops himself from pressing even further. He bites back the sharp words at the back of his tongue, not wanting to create a scene.

“Ugh, whatever.” Donghyuck rolls his eyes and sighs. He stomps out of the playroom and out the front door, not looking back in the slightest.

Mark rolls his eyes as well and sits back down by the table, picking up the black marker. He attempts to continue writing out his plan but Donghyuck’s words were ringing oh so loudly in his ear.

“Hyung?” Jaemin whispers a little too sadly for Mark’s liking. “What now?”

“I-“ Mark looks up to see four pairs of sad-looking eyes staring back at him, as if waiting for his command as a leader. “I’m not-“

“Uhm, hey guys.” The five boys whip their heads towards the door upon hearing the familiar voice. Standing at the doorway was Jeno, with Heechul behind him saying his goodbyes to the couple from earlier.

“Jeno? You’re done?” Jaemin asks, voice cracking.

Jeno nods and looks around the playroom.

“Where’s Donghyuck?”

“He uhm,” Mark explains. “He went out for a bit.”

“Oh? That’s weird.” Jeno murmurs, scratching at his head. As far as he knew, Donghyuck didn’t really like going out alone.

“So how did your adoption go?” Ren Jun asks, hoping not to hear the answer he didn’t want to hear. The other boys glance at Jeno in anticipation, with Jaemin chewing on his bottom lip in nervousness.

“Uh, before I tell you guys, can I talk to Jaemin for a bit?” Jeno flutters his eyes to the slightly shaking boy sitting on the floor by the round table. He smiles and offers his hand to the younger.

Jaemin smiles nervously and takes his hand, letting himself be pulled to the rooftop by  ~~ the love of his life ~~  his eye candy.

-

Donghyuck sat at the same dock by the lake that he and Mark often visited. He runs his fingers over the random doodles on the wood that he and the older boy would scribble every time. He scoffs, picking up a pebble and throwing it into the lake.

“Stupid Mark. Stupid, annoying Mark. What does  _he_  know what we all want? Just because he’s the oldest there and he’s been there for almost nine years, doesn’t mean shit.” Donghyuck grabs another pebble and stares at it with hard eyes. Pretending as if the pebble was a certain Mark Lee, he grips it tight with anger and flings it into the lake as far as possible. “Selfish asshole! I can't believe I like you, ugh!”

He screams and plops his whole body backwards on the dock, lying flat and facing the sky. He closes his eyes and feels the slightly chilling breeze.

“I miss you mom and dad.” He whispers, the wind carrying his words through the sky.

-

Sitting by the ledge of the rooftop, Jaemin peeks down the side of the five storey high orphanage building. He shivers at both the cold breeze and the height and brings his eyes back to Jeno’s side profile.

_Beautiful_ , he thinks.

Jeno smiles his  _unnecessary_ eye smile and turns to the pretty boy. Jaemin blinks, unsure of how to react.

“So the couple from earlier really wanted to take me home.” He began. “They’re really nice and they didn’t even mind that I’m turning sixteen soon.”

“That’s… Great, I guess?” Jaemin mumbles. He looks down and plays with his fingers, unsure of what to expect from their conversation. There was an awkward pause before Jeno speaks again after a few seconds of silence.

“I should just get to the point, huh?”

Jaemin nods, eyes still downcast.

“I told them I’d say yes, but -” Hearing this, Jaemin looks up at Jeno immediately. He could hear his heart break, his fingers were beginning to feel tingly and his eyes were getting wet.

Slightly shocked by Jaemin’s reaction, Jeno shifts closer to the younger boy and holds his shaky hands.

“No no, I’m not done yet, Na Na.” Jeno watches Jaemin croak out an  _okay_  before biting his bottom lip, clearly trying not to cry. “I told them I will agree, but I wanted to make sure of something first.”

There was that few seconds of silence again, and Jaemin really didn't want to speak because he knew that he would just break down.

“What is it?” He asks, giving up and just letting a lone tear roll down his cheek.

“I want you to come with.” Jeno swallows the lump in his throat, eyes searching Jaemin’s for a response. “They’re okay with it, and all I need is a yes or no from you.”

Jaemin stares at him in shock, mouth slightly hanging open. He didn’t know how to react. He didn’t like the idea of adoption, sure. But getting adopted together with Jeno? Having a  _real_  family, like what Donghyuck mentioned, with Jeno included?

He didn’t know what to say, so Jaemin simply stared into Jeno’s eyes for what seemed to be the longest time. He was so conflicted. A part of him just wanted to say yes in a heartbeat, because who was he kidding? He’d be with Jeno, like  _forever!_  They would live together in a house and even go to school together!

However another part of him said  _no_. Who was he to say yes and leave everything,  _everyone_ behind? The orphanage was home to him too. He made so many precious memories that no amount of riches could buy. He had amazing friends who loved him for who he was, the one sitting right in front of him included. 

He couldn’t leave it all behind could he?

Na Jaemin had never been in such a dilemma before. It was a simple yes or no question, yet the consequences behind either choices were so heavy.

Squeezing the other boy’s hand, Jaemin looks into Jeno’s anticipating eyes and speaks, albeit a little shakily.

“I’m gonna have to think about it first, okay? I need to talk to Mark and the rest too. And you need to talk to your cousin as well.”

Jeno smiles (again), and nods understandingly.

“That’s fine. And yes I’ll talk to Donghyuck too, when he comes back.” Jeno replies, thumbs rubbing Jaemin’s hands in comfort. “Why did he even leave anyway?”

“Oh uhm, he and Mark sort of had an argument. About you and the adoption. Mark wanted to stop it.” Jaemin explains.

Jeno frowns a bit, but decides not to talk about it further. Shifting even closer, he lets go of Jaemin’s hands and wraps his arms around the pretty boy instead, chin resting on his shoulder.

“Don’t be sad, Na Na.” Jaemin smiles at the nickname, sniffing a little. “It’ll be fine.”

Jaemin nods slightly and looks up at the cloudy sky.  _Hopefully._


	7. Chapter Six

_autophobia_

_(n.) fear of being alone or abandoned_

 

Silence. Silence was all he heard, as ironic as it is. His bed didn’t feel as soft or as comfortable as he remembers it to be. It was hard, solid and cold.

Mark cracks his eyes open and is immediately blinded by the abundance of white. Sitting up, he realises that he was no longer in his room, on his soft comfortable bed. He looks around, confused, wondering how he got there.

Everything was nothing but white. Mark couldn’t even tell which was the floor or which was the wall. There was _no end_. He thinks, no, he _knows_ that this was all a dream. There was no such white room in the orphanage.

Yet it all seemed so sickeningly real. Slightly panicking, he hops up onto his feet, shaking off the numb feeling in his limbs.

Mark begins to walk around aimlessly with his palms faced out in front of him, just in case he walks into a non-existent wall.

He’s been walking for minutes. Maybe hours. He doesn’t know, but no matter how much he’s been walking, it was all the same - white.

The “room” was endless, but he feels trapped.

He shuts his eyes tightly and screams, pinching himself in the arm in attempt to wake up from this dream? Nightmare?

Purple was starting to form on his arm, but he was still there, in that blank white room.

Huffing, Mark grudgingly seats himself down in the middle of nowhere (quite literally). Hugging his knees, he starts to sing to himself. He decides that hearing his own cracking voice is better than hearing _nothing._

He is about to go into the bridge of his third song when he suddenly hears a soft, familiar whisper of his name.

_Minhyung ah._

Abruptly standing up, he looks around with widened eyes. Ears perked up in case he was just imagining things.

_Minhyung ah._

“W-Who’s there?” He asks.

_Minhyung ah. Lee Minhyung._

“Mom?” He thinks it’s his mother. No one else ever calls him Minhyung that way. “Mom is that you?”

The voice doesn’t reply. It simply continues to call the boy by his Korean name.

Frustrated, Mark tries to find the source of the voice. He runs around the empty white room for what seemed to be like ages, and when he thinks the voice was getting louder with every step, he begins walking in that direction.

He walks and walks and walks.

The voice calling his name slowly getting louder and louder until there’s a ringing in his ear.

_MINHYUNG AH!_

The voice suddenly calls him in a shrill scream. Shocked and terrified, Mark cups his ears and squeezes his eyes shut.

When he thinks the voice has stopped, he opens his eyes again for the nth time, silently hoping that he would somehow wake up back in his room at the orphanage. But _no,_ he was still there. 

Whoever was playing with his mind clearly wasn’t done with him yet, because when he opens his eyes again, he is suddenly faced with an all too familiar brown mahogany door.

As elated as he was to finally see _something_ after a ridiculously long time in that white room, Mark knows it wasn’t over. There was the numb and tingly feeling running down his spine telling him that.

Not wasting any time, Mark grips the silver knob and swings the door open. Stepping into what he knows to be the empty hallways of the third level of the orphanage, he calls out names he’s been too used to saying.

“Donghyuck? Jaemin? Jeno? Ren Jun? Chen Le? Jisung?”

No answer.

“Where are you guys? Anyone?”

Still no answer.

He even tries calling out to Henry and the other caretakers, but to no avail. The hallways were so dimly lit and unusually quiet that it felt so eerie and cold. It looked a hundred percent like the orphanage, yet it wasn’t as warm or as homey as he knows it to be.

Shuffling through the hallways, Mark continues to call out for his friends as he kicks open the doors to every single room, only for each and every one of them to be dark and empty. Even their huge shared room on the fourth floor.

Slouching on the steps of the fourth floor, Mark gives up. He rubs his temples, unsure of what else to do. Honestly the only thing he _can_ do now is to sit and wait for this dream to end.

He is about to sing to himself again, however, when he hears the voices again. But this time it was different. It was another voice belonging to another special person. It was Donghyuck’s voice, and it sounded as if it was coming from the front door.

_Mark!_

“Donghyuck?”

_Mark!_

“Hold on I’m coming!” Mark runs down the stairs, nearly tripping and falling flat onto his face.

_Mark!_

He smiles to himself as he skips down because he was confident. He was so confident that this time, it was real. The sound of Donghyuck calling for him sounded exactly like how he would, minus the sass of course. He imagines the younger boy standing by the front door, shit eating grin plastered on his face.

_Mark!_

He was just two flights of steps away from the ground level when the voice stops. Agitated, Mark gives no fucks a dashes downstairs, skipping a number of steps on the way.

He was half unsurprised when he reaches the front hall and there is no one. He sighs and laughs at his stupidity, but his eyes catch a piece of paper stuck onto the middle of the front door.

He tears it off the brown door and in large bright red block letters, the paper reads.

_2/8/2017 Final Eviction Notice_

Mark widens his eyes. Countless questions running through his mind. _What year is it?! Why is the house being evicted?! And on the day I turn eighteen?! Where is everyone else?!_

He panics and continues to frantically shout for his friends, his family, his home. It was gone, all gone. And poor little Mark didn’t know what else to do but curl up into a ball on the ground, tears threatening to spill down his face.

_No no no, I’m not alone. No. It’s a bad dream, Mark. Just a bad dream. Oh please just let me wake up now, please._

Mark is cradling back and forth on the ground in self comfort when another slip of paper slides in front of him from the crack beneath the front door. He wants to run out and chase _whoever_ it was outside but his name scribbled on the top of the paper stops him.

_Lee Minhyung, Mark_

_Date Of Birth: 2/8/1999_

_Mother: Deceased_

_Father: Deceased_

_Siblings: None_

_Next Of Kin: None_

_Legal Guardian: None_

_Education: None_

He shakily reads on every single word printed on the paper. He tells himself that everything written was false. His parents being dead was a lie. The only thing that seemed right to him was his name and birthdate.

He flips over the now crumpled paper, hoping to find any information about his beloved friends, but he finds something else. 

He finds a note written to himself, but he doesn’t know who wrote it.

_You’re all alone now, Mark. You can’t run away from it. You will always be all alone. Always have and always will be. Everyone has left you here, no one wants you. You’re stuck here forever. Even if you try to leave this place, you have nowhere to go. You’re lost and abandoned._

_You’re all alone._

“No,” Mark shakily whispers to himself, rubbing his tear stained cheeks with the back of his free hand. “I’m not alone.”

_Yes you are._

The voice comes back, and it’s Donghyuck’s voice again.

_You will always be alone, Mark._

“No… No no no, I’m not alone!”

_Yes you are, Mark._

It was Jaemin’s voice this time, he recognises, but it wasn't as bright and cheeky as he remembers it to be. Instead it was cold and harsh, forcefully telling him how lonely he was.

_No one loves you, Mark. No one._

_Everyone has left you, Mark. We’ve left you._

_You’re alone. Always alone._

More voices join in the torture, poking fun at him. What’s worse was that those voices were of those he cared about the most - Donghyuck, Jaemin, Jeno, Ren Jun, Chen Le, Jisung and Henry. Even voices of his mother began tormenting him with those spiteful words.

_You’re alone._

_Alone._

_Alone._

“No, please stop!” Mark cries out. Hands pressed so tightly against his ears in fruitless attempts to block out the voices. “STOP!”

Falling to the floor, he screams. He shuts his eyes and screams, but the voices were just getting louder and louder.

_You’re alone._

-

Mark woke up screaming that morning, effectively pulling the other boys out of their slumber. Opening his bloodshot eyes, he is faced by worry written all over six familiar faces. He wants to hug them in happiness knowing that they were still there with him, but he didn’t want to seem like a weirdo or anything.

(And also he didn’t wish to tell them about his fear of being alone as such, he’s sure they’d tease him for being so child-like.)

“It was just a bad dream guys, don’t worry.” He assures them. “I was just being chased by zombies haha.”

They seemed to buy his excuse, though, even playfully discussing about the zombies that were supposedly in Mark’s dream. Donghyuck doesn’t believe him however, instead he continued staring at the older in question.

“Didn’t seem like _just a bad dream_ to me,” Donghyuck asks quietly when they were alone. “You sure it was zombies?”

Mark sighs. He wants to tell him that yes it was just a bad dream about the undead but he knows he can’t lie around the younger boy.

“It’s just,” He starts, hesitating. He wonders if it was fine to tell Donghyuck everything, his fears and insecurities. And so he does. “I dreamt that everyone I cared about left me behind and I was continuously reminded about being unwanted and forever alone.”

Mark avoids eye contact with the younger, not wanting to look vulnerable.

Donghyuck feels his heart swell a little at Mark voluntarily giving in to telling him about his deepest worries. He smiles when he realises that the older wasn’t that much of a stubborn control freak with a stick up his ass. He assumes he was just a worrying young boy who loved his friends too much. 

_It’s quite endearing,_ he thinks.

Mark tenses up when Donghyuck scoots closer to him and wraps his arms rather warmly around his frame. He could even feel his hand rubbing circles in comfort on his back. 

His cheeks redden at the skinship and thanks the heavens that no one else was in the room.

“It’s okay to be scared, Mark.” Donghyuck whispers _soothingly_ , which felt a little weird because they’re never had such a serious conversation like this before. “Like I said before, remember? You’re not alone.”

Mark huffs, blowing his fringe out of his face. He can only wish that he would really believe in Donghyuck’s words.

Breaking the hug, Donghyuck holds the older by his shoulders and gives him a wide smile that could pass off as a little creepy.

“What?” Mark asks, confused.

“You opened up to me again!” Donghyuck says excitedly, wiggling his eyebrows. “This is good progress for our relationship!”

“Ew, what relationship?!” Mark fakes a sound of disgust and playfully pushes the younger’s face away. “I hate your face.”

_Lies._

“But I like yours.” Mark feels a little touched by his words, but he laughs at Donghyuck’s monotonous reply, the younger’s face blank and emotionless like a robot.

“Ha ha very funny,” Mark rolls his eyes and Donghyuck giggles. _It feels nice to play around like this._

_“_ Come on, let’s go steal someone’s lunch.”

-

It was after dinner when Jaemin nervously approaches Mark and the rest of the boys. They were all sitting around the small television in their room, eyes glued to the cartoon. Jaemin grabs the remote and reluctantly turns off the television.

“Can I… talk to you guys for a sec?” He says before any of them could whine about the cartoon. Seeing that Jaemin wasn’t playing around (which was kind of weird to them because he isn’t usually _this_ serious), the boys quieten down and turn to face the pretty boy.

“So uh,” Jaemin clears his throat and sits down on the floor in front of everyone. He catches Jeno’s eye and the latter simply gives him a sweet smile in assurance. “You guys know how Jeno was called up for adoption the other day right?”

Everyone nods, curious as to why he was suddenly bringing that up again. Mark swallows the lump in his throat, _this doesn’t look like a good sign._

“Well… I was just wondering,” Jaemin hesitates a little, looking at the six pairs of eyes staring straight back at him. He takes a deep breath and exhales his burning question. “How would you guys feel if… I went with him?”

Everyone went silent, and Jaemin shivered, uncomfortable with the quiet atmosphere. He almost wanted to cry.

“The adults are okay with it,” Jeno steps in to explain when he sees Jaemin’s discomfort in the situation. “I didn’t want to just take him away from you guys because I know how much this place, as well as you guys, mean to him, that’s why we’d ask you first.”

No one says a single word except for Ren Jun who was translating everything to a confused Chen Le. The younger Chinese boy gasps a little and scratches at his head, unsure of what to think.

Jaemin looks at Jeno with shaky eyes, lips trembling. He didn’t know what to do, he felt so disgustingly stuck. He is about to get up to leave the room when Donghyuck speaks up.

“I think you should go for it if that’s what your heart wants, Jaemin ah.”

Jaemin smiles, mouthing a thank you to the tanner male. The latter nods and smiles back.

“Yeah hyung, if the thought of it makes you happy then I think you should too!” Jisung says as well, his blonde head bobbing up and down as he nods. “We know how much you two mean to each other as well.”

“Yeah, I mean,” Chen Le croaks out in broken Korean, eyes forming into crescents as he smiles assuringly. “If it was me, I would want Ren Jun ge to come with me too!”

Everyone nods, cheering Jaemin on, except for one. Jaemin looks over at Mark who was still staring at the floor, shoulders hunched.

“Mark?” He calls his best friend, hoping for a positive reaction from him as well. 

When the oldest still doesn’t reply no matter how many times he was called, the room fell silent once more. Eyes flitter questioningly towards Donghyuck, who could only shrug and sigh in response.

“Hey Mark are you -“ Donghyuck tries to coax the boy but he is cut off.

“Jaemin I’d like to have a word with you.” Mark looks up and stares at the boy with cold, hard eyes. “ _Alone_.”

Jaemin freezes, widening his eyes and mumbling out a soft _okay_. He is about to leave the room when Donghyuck catches his hands to stop him. 

The tanner male obviously knew what it was about, so he rolls his eyes, clearly annoyed that this topic was still not over.

“No,” He speaks firmly. “I’m sure that whatever you want to say to him, you can say to _all_ of us as well.”

“Okay fine!” Mark suddenly stands up, hands balled into fists by his side. He looks at every single one of them before questioning, “How are you guys even okay with this?!”

All of them stare at him confusedly, the younger ones a little shaken by Mark’s angry tone. _Not again._

“What do you mean, hyung?” Ren Jun meekly asks.

“What I _mean_ is, how are you guys just letting them go so _easily_? Don’t you remember everything we’ve done to make sure we all stay _together?_ Don’t our memories in this orphanage mean _anything_ to you guys?” Mark turns to look at Jaemin in the eyes. “Do we mean _nothing_ to you that you can leave so willingly?”

Jaemin leaves his mouth agape in shock, unsure of how to respond. He didn’t mean it that way, of course not. The boys and all the memories they made mean _everything_ to him, but getting out there would also mean new memories, new experiences and new possibilities. Brand new opportunities that he would be able to take up with a _real family,_ which even includes Jeno.

He so badly wants to tell Mark this, he so badly wants to get him to understand. He was scared and confused too, but who wouldn’t pass up new experiences?

Oh he just wants to explain himself but he is too shaken up by the situation to even speak up, so he stays silent, much to Mark’s dismay.

“What, Na Jaemin? Nothing to say?” Mark presses, emotions completely overwhelmed by anger. “So lover boy is more important than us now? That’s what it is for you - hoes before bros? That’s rich.”

“That’s enough, hyung.” Jeno steps up, wrapping an arm around a trembling Jaemin. The pretty boy simply hides his face in Jeno’s shoulder, sobbing softly. “You know he doesn’t mean it that way. He loves all of you so damn much.”

“Oh does he really?” Mark mocks. “You know this is all your fault, Jeno. We were fine before you came. Jaemin wasn’t such a lovesick puppy all the time and we never had a single problem!”

Jeno scoffs and doesn’t say anything, extremely hurt by the older boy’s words.

“Stop this, Mark,” Donghyuck speaks up, unable to believe the things he was currently hearing. “Do you even hear yourself? What’s gotten into you?”

“Hah, I’m just being real over here.” Mark responds a little too cockily, arms crossed in front of his chest. “Your cousin and his little boyfriend are being selfish. We’ve tried so hard to _stay_ in this place together yet they think they can just leave like that!”

“No, _you’re_ being the selfish one here, Mark.” Donghyuck fights back, the two of them slowly getting into the same argument as before. The other boys simply stand back, not wanting to get involved. “Why are you so set on wanting us to stay here _forever?_ Why are you stopping them from going out there and experiencing new things? Making _new_ memories?”

“Like I said before, we _belong_ here. We don’t need another home.”

“Not _this_ again, Mark. You’re so damn persistent about this _stupid_ issue it’s pissing me off, and I’m already holding myself back here.”

“Oh come on now, Donghyuck, just say what you wanna say. You always say things without thinking about others anyway.”

Mark was getting on his nerves, pushing on all his buttons, and Donghyuck did not like it one bit. He really didn’t. This wasn’t the same Mark he admired  ~~and fell in love with~~ , and he was just so damn disappointed with how he was acting.

“Fine I will!” Donghyuck gives in. He stomps towards Mark and stands right in his face. He raises his hand, continuously shoving the older boy with his index finger in his chest with every word, as if accusing him of a crime. 

“You don’t _really_ think we all belong here. You never did, ever since _you_ were left here when you were seven. You’re just a boy who is just so damn _fucking_ afraid of being left alone. You purposely mess with their adoptions because you didn’t want them to leave you behind, just like your mother did. And you still hold a _damn grudge_ against her for doing so, that is why you do this!”

Donghyuck takes a short breather to see Mark’s expression. The boy is frozen but he doesn’t stop there. His disappointment allows him to carry on pointing out the older boy’s faults.

“I tried to understand where you’re coming from, Mark. I really did. But this is too much and you’ve gone too far. Jaemin is _crying_ , and you hurt my cousin’s feelings. You’re so adamant on wanting us to stay with you because you’re so damn scared that your nightmare would turn into reality.” Donghyuck’s emotions were pouring as he spoke. He really didn’t want to have to do this but he had to.

“I didn’t want to resort to this, but you’re a _coward_ Mark. A _selfish_ , little coward. You’re so afraid of us leaving you but you don’t remember how much we all _love_ you.” Donghyuck swallows the lump in his throat. He doesn't care about the tears running down his cheeks as he begrudgingly whispers, “You can’t grasp the fact that even if I was _thousands_ of miles away, I would still _love_ you despite being the stupid douchebag that you are.”

It was the last line that had Mark looking straight up into Donghyuck’s glassy eyes. He had been continuously hit by realisation for the past few minutes that he didn’t think that Donghyuck would suddenly _confess._

He gives the tanner male his signature speechless face, eyes widened and mouth gaping. Meanwhile Donghyuck just gives him a bittersweet smile.

“Even when you’re _physically_ alone, Mark, you’re never _actually_ alone. You _always_ have people who love you.”

 

* * *

 

Oh damnnnn that drama :-) HAHAHA I hope you guys liked this chapter! Sorry I couldn't update on Wednesday :( But guysss this story is ending soon!!! Am I sad? Happy? I dunno???? Anyways have I mentioned how much I love reading all your comments? hziwebirweubami you're all so sweet I'm so thankful.

~~& DID U GUYS SEE JOHNNY AT SPECTRUM KHZGLHRWIHG DJ JOHNNY MY BOIIIII IM SO HAPPY LIKE???/ THIS IS 73.5FM RADIO JOHNNY'S STATION ACK I LOVE HIM ;;;;~~

comments and subscribes are always loved! <3 (i would really really like to hear what you guys thought about this chapter huhu I took such a long time to wrtie it because it was so hard to find the right words smh i fail)

xoxo


	8. Chapter Seven

Mark knocks on the same brown mahogany doors he’s been so used to facing, shoulders a little slumped.

_“Come in.”_

He sighs as he twists the brass doorknob, sliding through the opening. He doesn’t greet Henry with his usual cheeky smile and bright voice, instead dragging his feet across the hardwood floors. This shocks Henry quite a bit for Mark has always been a bright kid and was rarely _this_ upset over something.

“What’s wrong, Lil Marco?” The caretaker asks, taking a seat next to the sulking boy on the couch.

“I fucked up, hyung.” Mark sniffs as he looks down at the fidgeting fingers on his lap. “The boys hate me now.”

Henry frowns. As far as he knew, the seven of them stuck together like glue. They were a great bunch of friends who love each other unconditionally, and accepted each other’s flaws and mistakes. They were a _dream team_ , and anyone could see that.

“I highly doubt that, Mark ah,” Henry scoots closer to the boy and wraps an arm around his shoulders, patting his bad comfortingly. “They love you no matter what, even a blind person could see that.”

Mark buries his face in his hands, shaking his head profusely. “Not after what I did, hyung.”

And so Mark explains to Henry about the whole situation, beginning with why he ever started with his anti-adoption plans. As much as he hated to admit it, Donghyuck was right. He _was_ a selfish coward. He was so afraid of being left alone again he didn’t think of others’ feelings.

Mark throws his arms around a still shocked Henry and weeps into his shoulder. Henry could only offer a hand rubbing at his back and a few words of comfort, because after all, this was a matter that only Mark himself could fix.

“Hey Mark?” Henry speaks again within the silent room, where only little hiccups from the younger boy could be heard. The latter looks up at him questioningly, eyes puffy and swollen. “Wanna know what it was like being your caretaker?”

Even after pouring out his feelings and getting all emotional, Mark still had the cheek to roll his eyes at his hyung. 

“You’ve already told me a million times how much of a troublemaking brat I am, hyung. I don’t need more of that, especially not right now.”

Henry simply laughs and gets up from the couch. “Let me just go get something from Heechul hyung’s office.”

With that, the young caretaker leaves the room and Mark is left alone wondering how on earth he was going to make it up to the boys.

-

Jeno sits cross legged on the ledge by the large window of his room, staring blankly at the empty streets below. He lets out a long sigh and leans against the window, eyes drifting to a close.

“What’s up with you?” He cracks his eyes back open when he hears his cousin’s voice. He turns to Donghyuck and gives him a seemingly bittersweet smile.

“Nothing much.”

“You always sucked at lying.” Donghyuck rolls his eyes, propping himself up onto the bay-window facing his cousin. He playfully nudges Jeno’s knee with his foot, smiling when the latter tries to stifle a laugh. “You better tell me!”

Jeno’s expression turns sad again however, avoiding Donghyuck’s eyes as he stares out the window again.

“What if Mark hyung was right?” He murmurs softly, but Donghyuck catches it anyways.

“What do you mean?”

Jeno looks back at his cousin with so much sorrow and worry in his eyes that Donghyuck felt his heart drop a little.

“What if it’s all my fault that this… _thing_ happened?”

Donghyuck wanted to smack his cousin in the face for thinking that way, and so he does, but lovingly of course.

“Don’t be ridiculous! You and Jaemin are practically in love with each other, it’s only natural for you guys to always want to be together.” He almost cringes at his own words, but decides against it, hand squeezing his cousin’s knee comfortingly instead. “You’re _not_ being selfish okay? Neither of you are.”

“Is that how you feel about Mark hyung too?” Jeno questions out of the blue. “How much you care about him, even though he can be an ass sometimes?”

“Don’t say that about him! He’s just misunderstood.” The tanner male playfully smacks his cousin again, earning a cheeky laugh from him. He snorts and leans back against the wall. “But yeah, I love him, unfortunately.”

There is a long silence before Jeno speaks up again.

“Hyuck, I’m not exactly ready to leave.”

“Wait what?” Donghyuck stares at him, confused. “Then why did you even agree to the adoption?”

“I don’t know?” The older shrugs. “Mom always taught me to never miss out on new experiences. I didn’t want to disappoint her I guess? Because I know she would’ve wanted me to go for it.”

Donghyuck sighs and scoots closer to his cousin, wrapping his arm around the older’s shoulders.

“Yeah, my mom told me that too. But Jeno, she wouldn’t want you to do something you aren’t ready for, no matter how big the opportunity is.”

Jeno looked up at his cousin all of a sudden, a strange look upon his face.

“What?” Donghyuck questions.

“I have to go talk to Mr. Kim! And Jaemin too!” He swiftly hops off the ledge with his newfound enthusiasm and makes his way out of the room. “Thanks Hyuck!”

The tanner male lifts a brow, bemused by his cousin’s antics. “You’re welcome, I think?”

-

Mark drags his feet towards his room, not the one he shared with the boys but his old room. The very first room he got when he was an orphan. His hands clutching an envelope so tight the sides crumple slightly.

Any passer by would’ve thought he was a ghost with the way he was walking and the look on his face, but he was simply deep in thought, mind still processing his caretaker’s words from earlier.

_When Henry came back into his office, he had two things in his hands - a familiar drawing and a brown envelope. He sat down in front of Mark and presented the two items to him._

_“This envelope was in your backpack when I found you all those years ago.” Henry tells him, placing the envelope in his hands. “It’s a letter from your mom. Was told to give it to you when you turn eighteen but I think now is the perfect time.”_

_Mark stared at the envelope in his hands, unsure of what to feel._

_“And this drawing,” The caretaker interrupts his thoughts, lifting up the drawing to show the young boy. It was a typical drawing of a boy holding a woman’s hand, with a house, the sun and flowers. “This was your drawing, Mark. I’m sure you remember it?”_

_Oh he does remember that drawing, but only vaguely._

_“Why are you showing me that?” He asks. “It’s just a silly little kid’s drawing.”_

_“Well, that silly little kid happened to draw this exact same picture every time he got the chance.” Henry simply smiles and puts down the drawing. “I have a whole box of this drawing of yours, Mark.”_

_“So? What’s that supposed to mean?”_

_“You miss her, Mark. You miss your mom. No matter how hard you tried to deny it, or how many times you always said you hated her, you always miss her. You drew this picture in the exact same way every week, even after you realised she was never coming back.”_

_Henry waited a little for any sort of response from the young boy, but Mark was still staring helplessly at him. So he continued._

_“Of course you stopped when you turned twelve and got busy with education. Mark, I watched you grow from when you first got here till now. You can be a troublemaker, yes, but you’re still a soft hearted boy who just misses his mom. You say you hate her so much, but you still listen to her last words - to not sleep too late and to brush your teeth before bed. You’ve actually grown to accept her leaving you, so I’m sure you can do the same with your friends.”_

So when Mark finally reaches his old room, he locked the door and lay himself down on the small bed. His eyes linger on the envelope for almost half an hour, unsure of wether he should read the letter or not.

_Fuck it,_ he decides, grabbing the envelope and ripping it open. His heart swells and he almost tears up when he sees the first few words in his mother’s handwriting.

That night, Mark cried himself to sleep. He cried out realising how selfish and stupid he had been. He had blamed his mother for everything, when all she was doing was protecting him.

Someone was after them, threatening to torture them both. But they couldn’t run away of course, for they wouldn’t go far with the little money that they had.

His mother didn’t want him to go through all that, which was why she left him at such a safe place. She was long _gone_ now.

Mark lay in bed clutching the letter to his chest as he cried, his little hiccups echoing throughout the room. He falls asleep thinking of his mother’s words, promising himself to make things right the next day.

_I’m so sorry, Minhyung ah, please forgive me. Mommy loves you the most, and mommy is always with you._

_-_

Tension filled the room the moment Donghyuck stepped in. Everyone was sitting so far apart from each other, and it was so quiet that he almost shivered.

He sees Mark sitting in the armchair, biting his nails, obviously thinking about something. The eldest had called them all into the room for a “meeting”, saying he wanted to talk to everyone.

But when Donghyuck saw him that morning, worry was an understatement. His hair was like a bird’s nest and his eyes, oh his eyes. They were bloodshot red and puffy, unable to be hidden behind his round glasses.

The tanned male was itching to ask him about it, but they still weren’t on the best of terms. After all, Donghyuck still never got a definite reply from the older after his very frustrating confession the other day. He chooses stay quiet and lean against the couch instead.

Realising that everyone was finally present, Mark clears his throat and stood up in front of the six boys. Hands in his pockets, he looks down, avoiding their awaiting eyes.

“I uh…” He begins. “I’m sorry, guys. Not just for the other day, but for everything as well.”

He nervously looked up at his friends, hoping for a response, but of course there is none. He takes a deep breath and locked eyes with Jaemin’s glassy ones.

“I’m really sorry about what I said about you, Na Na.” He manages to say. “I didn’t mean any of that, and I certainly didn’t mean to make you cry.”

Jaemin bites his lip and looks away, however he gives a little nod in acknowledgement.

“I’m sorry about what I said about you too, Jeno yah. Don’t think it’s your fault okay? It’s not, it’s _my_ fault.” He turns to Jeno as well, who mouths an _it’s okay_ with a little smile.

“I just…” Mark pauses mid sentence, feeling his eyes water. He buries his faces in his hands and sniffs a little too loudly before managing to choke out his words, voice still wavering. “I just m-miss my mom, you g-guys. I miss her s-so much. A-and I was angry. I was s-still so a-angry at her and I took it out on y-you, which was w-wrong. I’m so f-fucking s-sorry.”

He finally breaks down in front of them, surprising the boys.

“Hyung…” Donghyuck whimpers out. He gets up to comfort the older boy but Mark looks up and stops him.

“You guys don’t have to forgive me, but I really am sorry. I’m sorry for stopping you guys from finding new families. I’m sorry for being such a bad hyung.” He takes another deep breath before continuing. “I finally found out why my mom left, and I’ve also come to realise some things, including _you.”_

Mark locked eyes with Donghyuck, who stood still. He takes a few steps towards the younger and smiles between his tears. Donghyuck freezes when the older holds his hands and continued looking into his eyes.

“I agree that I’m a selfish coward. An asshole. Or whatever names you like to call me. And I don’t know why you still love me despite all that but,” There is a slight pause before he continues. He hears a few gasps in the background when he unceremoniously pecks Donghyuck on the lips, and the younger boy reddens.

“But this asshole is in love with you too, Lee Donghyuck.”

“Oh ma gad, finally!” Chen Le exclaims excitedly, but is immediately shushed by Ren Jun.

Mark laughs a little, but Donghyuck’s silence worries him.

“Hyuck? Say something, please?”

“W-what?” Donghyuck finally snaps out of it. Realising what just happened, he groaned, the flush on his cheeks reaching the tips of his ears. “Oh God.”

The eldest messily brings the younger into his embrace, chin resting atop his reddish brown locks. He ignores his words of _I hate you so much_ that were muffled by his chest and laughs.

Mark looks at the rest of his friends whose moods were finally lifted and were cheering at the new couple. Even Jaemin, who was feeling hurt earlier was giggling.

Speaking of Jaemin, Mark calls out to him and the pretty boy looks at him in confusion.

“You can go with Jeno if you want to, Jaemin ah.” Mark smiles at him. “I won’t stop you, or any of you from now on.”

“Actually…” Donghyuck interrupts, pulling away from the older’s embrace. “They’re not leaving anymore.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah about that,” Jeno explains, fingers rubbing the back of his neck as hops off his bed. “I’m actually still not ready to leave yet. I’m sorry for the mix up, but I already talked to Mr. Kim.”

“Then why did you agree in the first place?” Ren Jun asks.

“Eh, long story, I’ll explain later.” Jeno replies sheepishly. “But hey, the dream team is back in business!”

“Dream team?” Donghyuck questions. “Is that what you call us?”

“It was Na Na’s idea~” Jeno argues, arm circling around said boy’s waist. He gives the pretty boy a soft kiss on his cheek and smiles.

“Ugh, you hyungs are gross!” Jisung suddenly retorts from the side, faking a vomitting sound. “That includes you too, Mark hyung and Donghyuck hyung!”

Mark rolls his eyes and randomly swoops down to kiss Donghyuck as well, just to annoy the youngest. Donghyuck hits his arm, but the blush on his cheekbones was still prominent.

“Nooo, my innocence!” Jisung complains. “I hate you all.”

“Shut it, baby chick.” Mark teases. “Come here, you guys! Group hug!”

The seven boys huddle up with Mark getting squashed up in the middle. They scream out happily even when they all fall to the floor from the unbalanced weight of the group hug. Happiness filled the room once more, nonetheless, as the boys shared their love for one another.

_A dream team indeed._

_-_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omfG HI IM BACK AFTER ALMOST 4 MONTHS KSKFNGIWEOLS I'm so so soooo sorry you guys school is being a bitch and dance trainings are hectic af!!! But yes I'm back to writing again dw! I'm still busy w school and dance of course but I'm on a fic roll these days, hopefully I can get more things out! Anyways I hope you guys like this chapter! It's not the last chapter, there's one more left! I'm almost done with the last chapter, so it MIGHT be out tonight or tomorrow!!
> 
> This chapter wasnt proofread cause Im lazy af but thANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR STAYING!!! WOULD LOVE TO HEAR WHAT U GUYS THINK OF THIS CHAPTER!!! SEE YALL SOON XX


	9. Chapter Eight (Final)

When Mark turned eighteen, he felt afraid. You know when students graduate from high school, not knowing what to do with their life afterwards? Whether they should find a job, follow their dreams or continue their education? You know that feeling?

Well Mark was feeling exactly that.

Sure the people at the orphanage as well as the dream team threw him a huge party, which he was extremely grateful for, of course. But when he woke up the next day as an official eighteen year old, he felt lost.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about what he wanted to do for the past few months. After all, he _had_ come to a conclusion that he wanted to do something pertaining to music, what with his ability to play numerous instruments like the piano, guitar and violin. (He had a lot of time on his hands while being in the orphanage alright, don’t judge!)

He just didn’t know where to start.

-

More than a week passes and Sunday comes around quicker than ever. The front door of the orphanage bolts open and two Chinese boys come running into the foyer, falling into a pile together with five others.

“So how was your first week of school?” Mark asks curiously, sounding like a mom, once they’ve all settled down.

“It was amazing, oh ma gad!” The younger Chinese exclaims, cheekbones lifting so high his eyes turn into slits.

“It was fine, hyung!” Ren Jun replies more calmly than Chen Le. “Ma and Pa enrolled us in a private international school and we met lots of friends from around the world!”

“And they’re all so nice!” Chen Le adds on with glee.

“That’s great!” Mark grins and he pats both their heads. About a month ago, his two Chinese boys were successfully adopted by a Chinese-Korean couple in their late 40s. They were very friendly and welcoming of course, the two boys easily settling into their home.

Although Mark had learnt his lesson, he was still pretty affected. He barely spoke to anyone for the first few days, only leaving his bed to apologise (again) when Donghyuck ~~forced~~ coaxed him out of it. (Don’t ask how.)

He had ruffled the two boys’ hairs, giving them a bittersweet smile as they packed their things. The orphanage was relatively quieter without Chen Le’s screams of _oh ma gad_ and Ren Jun’s gruntled mumbles telling the younger to be less of a nuisance.

He was still slightly sulky for a few days after they left, but trust his _amazing_ boyfriend Donghyuck to always distract him from the bitterness, bringing him to their usual hangout spot. Besides, Ren Jun and Chen Le promised to visit every weekend, and they’ve been doing so without fail, slowly easing the worry in Mark’s heart.

Back to the present, the seven boys were happily eating the pie that one of the caretakers made when Mr. Kim walked into the room, the heels of his leather oxfords clicking on the hardwood floors.

“Hey boys!” He greets them with a smile. “Nice seeing you two again, Ren Jun and Chen Le.”

The boys greet the director with their usual loudness and a little bow, pieces of pie crust stuck to the corners of their lips. They haven’t seen Mr. Kim in a while, they’re not sure why. The last time they saw him in orphanage was Mark’s birthday, which was more than a week ago.

“Anyways, I have some news for you all.” The director says as he stands before the seven of them, hands clasped behind his back. He refuses with a smile when Jeno offers him a seat, opting to get straight to the point.

“I’ve already discussed this with my partners and my workers, but I have yet to tell you boys but - this orphanage will no longer be in business.”

The collective sound of forks being dropped onto the table could be heard, along with soft gasps of disbelief.

Mark almost chokes on his pie and sputters out crumbs, his nightmare from before flashing briefly in his mind. Donghyuck looks at his boyfriend in worry, arm reaching out to pat his back.

“What do you mean, Mr. Kim?” He asks curiously.

“Yeah, what’s gonna happen to us then?” Jaemin adds on.

The old man chuckles at the boys’ adolescence, walking over to Jisung and playfully ruffling the boy’s mushroom hair.

“You boys jump to conclusions too quickly, tsk.” Mr. Kim shakes his head. “Don’t worry, it’s not going to be shut down! Gee, you boys always think of the worst case scenario.”

The seven boys sigh in relief, picking up their forgotten forks and continuing their pie feast, leaving their ears perked as they listen to the director’s explanation.

“Well, taking care of troublemaking kids like you can be a pain,” The old man jokes, eyes darting towards Mark. The boy simply giggles and playfully gives him finger hearts. Mr. Kim scoffs and rolls his eyes. “So, I’ve decided to turn the orphanage into an academy instead.”

“Ooh~” The boys coo, pretty fascinated by the director’s plans.

“The daycare will run as per normal, but we will also be offering different types of classes and tuition. Most of the caretakers have been trained already, but of course they would still need to get some certification.”

“But wait,” Jaemin interrupts. “That still doesn’t answer my question though. What’s gonna happens to _us?_ ”

“Well,” Mr. Kim begins, stealing a bit of Mark’s pie when he wasn’t looking. He munches on the sweet dessert as he continues. “Kicking you out would be cruel of course, but I can’t let you all freeload here in this house, so the best option would be to help out with classes. I’ll give you boys more pocket money and you can keep your room.”

The boys look at each other, lips pursed as if to consider the director’s conditions. Oh who were they kidding, it was a great opportunity. They get more pocket money and they still get to stay together, with the exception of the two Chinese boys of course.

“I’m sure we can work with that.” Mark looks up at the director and agrees with a smile. _Maybe this could be a way I can start doing music_ , the boy thinks to himself.

The director grins, stealing another bite of pie before leaving the room. _Those little devils are so cute._

“Aw man, if only Mr. Kim did this _before_ we got adopted,” Chen Le randomly speaks up, sulking at his slice of pie. “I would love to show everyone how to be a cutie president like me.”

The boys roll their eyes, Ren Jun shoving a forkful of pie into the younger’s mouth.

“Shut it and eat your damn pie, Zhong Chen Le.”

-

Mark strolls through rows and rows of gold-painted trees, warm toned leaves falling to the ground and rustling beneath his boots. He smiles watching Donghyuck play around the piles of autumn leaves like a kid. _God he’s so in love._

He widens his eyes when he hears the younger boy screech all of a sudden before falling backwards onto a low pile of leaves. Mark jogs over in worry, but he scoffs when he sees his boyfriend laying there with a shit eating grin on his face, eyes closed in bliss.

“You ass, I got worried for nothing.” The older complains, looking down at the beauty that lay before him in admiration. But of course he wouldn’t admit that.

“Aww, you were worried about me?” Donghyuck teases, fluttering his eyes open. He looks up into Mark’s eyes and giggled. “You like me _so_ much, hyung!”

Mark ignores him, blowing his bangs out of his face, and stretches his arm out towards the younger.

“Come on, get out of there, it’s dirty.”

Donghyuck smirks, obviously plotting something else in his mind. He grips his boyfriend’s arm firmly, pulling him down onto the ground with him instead of getting up.

The older boy shrieks, obviously taken by surprise. As he lay there pathetically on the ground, facing the sky, he decides it was best to ignore his stupid boyfriend for messing with him.

The cold shoulder clearly didn’t last long because it only took a little peck on the cheek for Mark to turn around and look down at Donghyuck oh so fondly once more.

“Ey, don’t be mad~” The younger whines, throwing his limbs around his boyfriend as he snuggles up against his side, clearly not caring about the dirty leaves. “I just wanted to lay here with you.”

“Really? Here in the middle of the park where everyone can see us?” Mark questions the boy, amused. He wraps his own arms around Donghyuck though, chin resting atop his head. “You know we can do this at home right?”

“Well yeah, but this feels nicer.”

Mark merely hums in response, and two stay in each other’s embrace for God know’s how long until the older breaks the silence.

“How’s vocal training with Taeyeon noona?” He asks, inhaling the scent of the autumn breeze together with Donghyuck’s shampoo.

“That woman is ruthless,” The younger groans. “I didn’t know she could sing like that though, it’s amazing.”

Donghyuck had decided to help Taeyeon, one of their caretakers, with vocal classes once the academy was open for business. After all, he used to perform together with Jeno at his old school. Of course he still had a lot to improve on, but who knew the quiet and gentle caretaker used to be a vocal powerhouse in a band when she was in her late teens.

“Yeah I’ve heard her sing before,” Mark chuckles, thinking back to the time he overheard said caretaker hitting the high notes while baking. “Almost busted the windows though.”

Donghyuck _tsk-ed_ , nuzzling his nose further into Mark’s red knitted sweater.

“How about music with Henry hyung, though?” He asks back. “You guys make a lot of ruckus with those drums.”

“It’s going great!” The older laughs, recalling the time almost everyone complained about the noise they made. “Though I’m surprised though, Henry hyung is like a music genius. He plays almost every instrument. To think that after all those years I would know that about him.”

“Hah, it’s like all our caretakers have a secret past or something.” Donghyuck jokes.

“Yeah, like Jongin hyung with dancing too. Who knew eh? That guy is always either eating or sleeping.”

Donghyuck hums and nods in agreement, relishing in the soft vibrations off Mark’s chest every time he spoke or laughed. He lets Mark carry on with his rambles about the caretakers’ “secret identities”, nodding every now and then.

He lifts his head slightly, staring blankly at his boyfriend’s features as he went on and on with his rambles. The younger grins and randomly presses another kiss on Mark’s chin, effectively cutting him off mid-sentence.

“What was that for?”

“Nothing~” Donghyuck says cutely, still grinning up at the older. “You’re still ugly.”

Mark sniggers at his boyfriend’s words, unaffected by being called ugly. After all, he knew the underlying meaning behind it.

He pulls away from the younger slightly, looking down straight into his eyes.

“I love you too, dumb Hyuck.” He says, craning his neck down further to press a loving kiss to Donghyuck’s lips. He feels the younger smile against his lips, before he clasps his hands behind the older’s neck, deepening the kiss.

And the two boys lay there in each other’s arms as they watched the sun go down, unbothered by the dirty ground or the weird stares from passers-by.

-

The small dance studio is warm and slightly stuffy when Jaemin enters, mirrors all fogged up. He spots Jeno sitting in the corner of the studio, back against the mirror and eyes closed, clearly taking a break from dancing.

Jisung is nowhere to be seen though, probably already gone to wash up, so Jaemin takes in the sight of his boyfriend - dark hair all damp and tousled atop his head, beads of sweat trickling down the sides of his face down to his neck, mouth parted parted slightly to breathe, and last but not least his sweaty white t-shirt sticking to his form.

Jaemin tries to avoid the foolish smile forming on his face. Even in this state, his Jeno manages to look so good. They’ve been dating for quite a while yet the younger still never fails to feel all giddy and gross inside because of him.

Breaking out of his mushy ass trance, the pretty boy strides over to his resting boyfriend quietly and squats down by his side. Not caring about the sweat, Jaemin runs his fingers through Jeno’s chocolate brown locks, brushing them away from sticking to his forehead.

Jeno leans into his touch and smiles, fully aware of who it was waking him up. His eyes flutter open to meet his boyfriend’s doe ones.

“I’m all sweaty, Na Na.”

“It’s okay,” the younger assures, fingers twirling a lock of hair. “You done?”

Jeno nods. He wraps a hand around his boyfriend’s wrist, bringing his arm down and pressing his lips softly to the back of his hand. He laces their fingers together and gets up from the floor, grabbing his bag with his free hand.

He doesn’t start making his way out of the studio, however. Instead, he randomly pulls Jaemin into his arms, pressing another kiss to the younger’s lips, hands resting on his hips.

Jaemin is of course shocked by his boyfriend’s sudden display of affection, but chooses not to complain. He opts to bask in the moment, hands clutching the collar of the older’s damp shirt.

Their eyes flutter close, simply enjoying being in each other’s arms. The boys have been so busy preparing for the orphanage’s “remodel” that they barely have time to spend with each other - be it going out to have fun or simply sitting around in each other’s company.

Hence there they stood, showing one other just how much they miss just simply holding each other. But the beautiful moment is cut short when poor little Jisung walks in on them.

“Oh God, hyungs!” The young one groans, his unusually large hands flying up to cover his _innocent_ eyes. “Not here, please, we dance here!”

Jeno and Jaemin reluctantly pull away from each other, chuckling at the sight of Jisung standing by the doorway with his palms pressed on his eyes.

“Okay, Jisung ah. We’re done.” Jeno assures the young boy, chuckling once more when he peeks between his fingers to make sure the older wasn’t lying. “I thought you left to wash up already.”

Deciding that it was safe to take a step further, Jisung puts his arms back by his side and trudges towards the chair by the speakers. He picks up the black snapback sitting idly on the seat and throws it on his head.

“I forgot my cap.” The youngest explains, grimacing when he turn around and catches Jaemin giving his boyfriend a soft peck on his jaw. “Get a room, hyungs.”

“But we _do_ have a room, Jisung ah,” Jaemin playfully banters. “Just that we all share it.”

Jisung merely rolls his eyes, silently thinking if there was anything in the room that he could throw at his disgusting hyungs without killing them.

“Just hurry go get ready,” He opts to say instead, marching towards the exit. “We’re meeting Ren Jun hyung and Chen Le hyung at the usual place at seven.”

“Aye aye, captain Park~” The couple playfully salutes, giggling when Jisung shuts the studio door loudly on purpose.

The two face each other once more with love filled eyes, grinning stupidly when they lock gazes at the same time. They stare lovingly into each other’s eyes as if to say _I love you_.

“Come on,” Jeno whispers softly. “Let’s stop being such saps and go get ready before Chen Le throws a fit about _punctuality._ ”

Jaemin hums in agreement, swinging their linked arms as they exit the studio.

-

The seven boys sat in a huddle at their usual spot, the little dock by the lake. The sun had long gone down, their stomachs satisfied from the barbecue dinner they had together. They stared wordlessly out into the night sky, hair whipping uncontrollably in the autumn breeze.

“It sure is nice out tonight.” Ren Jun comments. “I feel happy.”

“Everything is nice to me when we’re all together.” Mark adds on poetically. As if on cue, the other boys turn to look at him weirdly with raised brows. He sighs. “Too deep?”

He receives numerous continuous nods from the six of them. He shrugs, going back to playing with Donghyuck’s fingers on his lap.

“Can’t believe it’s been two years already.” Jeno voices out, memories of the past two years casually flashing by in the back of his mind.

“Yeah I honestly thought we’d all grow old and rot in the orphanage, playing pranks till our backs broke.” Jaemin jokes.

“The selfish part of me would’ve loved that, honestly.” Mark mentions with a slight laugh. “Growing up is kinda scary.”

There is a collective hum in agreement before the atmosphere falls pretty quiet once more, the sound of rustling leaves taking over. It doesn’t matter though, because even though the dream team consisted of noisy, troublemaking kids, silence like this allows them to simply enjoy each other’s company.

They rarely hang out as seven anymore, what with the preparations at the academy and the two Chinese boys only being able to visit when they’re free. But it’s okay, because despite being apart sometimes, the love they have for each other is always there.

“I hope we’ll all keep in touch still when we’re like, forty or something.” Chen Le utters, the rest of them were slightly shocked at the Chinese boy’s sudden sentimental words.

“Don’t worry Le,” Donghyuck assures the younger with a smile. “Nothing can separate the dream team.”

“Yeah,” Mark agrees, thumb softly running over the back of Donghyuck’s hand as he says so. He catches his boyfriend’s eyes and gives him a loving smile. “Nothing can.”

Jisung beams to himself, hand digging into the inner pockets of his jacket to pull out a black marker he randomly brought out that night. He leans over slightly and scribbles something on the surface of the worn out wooden planks of the dock, ending it with a cheesy heart.

He beams wider from ear to ear, plopping the marker back into his pocket and turning back to his hyungs to join in the conversation.

_Dream Team ♡_

_-_

It was a bright April afternoon when the doorbell of the academy rings throughout the house. Seeing as he was nearest to the front door, Jaemin hops off the couch he was reading a book on and skips to the large mahogany door.

 _Probably some parent coming to pick his or her kid up_ , he thinks.

The doorbell rings again before Jaemin could even touch the door knob. He shouts a perky _coming!_ and grips the bronze door knob, but when he pulls the heavy door open, he is met with a vaguely familiar face.

Jaemin gasps when he finally recalls who the grown man standing before his eyes is.

“Yuta hyung?”

 

**_\- fin -_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kekeke did you really think it was over? *evil face*
> 
> not proofread as usual because i suck and i'm lazy as fuck what's new right hahaha
> 
> AAAAND THATS A WRAP!!! The Lost Boys is officially finished! How did you guys like the ending? ;) hohoho I wonder what that means eh~ Anyways, I really really wanna thank all of you for wasting your time to support this fic! This is like the first ever fic I completed after idk how many years of attempting to write shit HAHAHA. I really hope you guys love this fic as much as I do, and I'm sorry if it didn't live up to your expectations! Comments are always loved! See yall soon! ♡♡♡
> 
> Also I'm starting a new jaeno fic real soon and its x-men au wooo i'm soooo eggcited keep your eyes peeled!

**Author's Note:**

> HEY GUYS! So I decided to post my work here on AO3 too :D Some of yall probably read it on AFF already but am just posting here in case some readers prefer to read on AO3! My LiveJournal is still under construction as well uhu :( Hope you guys enjoy! ♡


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